


The Omega Report

by Rigil_Kentauris



Category: Alpha Protocol
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alan Parker - Freeform, Angst, Espionage, First Person, G22, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, MSJ canon extension, Novelization, Teamwork makes the dream work, corporate conspiracies, cut content!Thorton, cut content!Westridge, drama drama, fem!Surkov, mostly canon compliant, somewhat agent/recruit playthrough
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2018-07-24 10:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 37
Words: 136,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7504471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're new to G22, and you may not know this, but not too long ago, our organization was involved with a pretty big world crisis. The whole we-nearly-had-world-war-III, china-verus-america-super-smack-down? You can't have missed it. Well, if you are going to effectively carry out your missions and be an asset to us as we pick up the pieces and continue to safeguard our chaotic, lovable planet, you have to know what REALLY went down. And for that, we have the Omega Report.</p><p>It all began about a year and three months ago, when our sketchy sister agency Alpha Protocol, an off-the-books American blacklist bunch of so-called "do-gooders", made the mistake of sending one Agent Michael Thorton to investigate the supposed theft of American missiles...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. THE GREYBOX

**Author's Note:**

> *****NOTE*****  
>  a few backstory and canon deviations were recently applied to this work, because I'm madly in love with the cut content for AP. I have a lot of other legit reasons why these changes were made, and I'll link to the explanation eventually, so if you're interested in that, keep an eye out!
> 
>  *****MORE IMPORTANT NOTE*****  
>  If you haven't played the game, most of this is canon-compliant, and a good deal of the dialogue while on missions is pulled from the game. However, there are significant changes that might confuse you if you decide to play the game (YAY!), so I thought I'd mention that. In short, Yancy's backstory here is cut content, Sean's backstory is...complicated, but not in the game, and almost everything with Madison is stuff I made up. The VCI things I'm about to do is all theory on my part. There also is no AP prequel, as this story suggests, but I'll making one as soon as this monster is done, so that's why those references are there. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story! I adore any comments you may have <3
> 
> \------  
> Practicing my writing by novelizing a video game. this is under constant editing. HMU if you have ideas on characterization! You can also talk to me about it on my [tumblr](https://rigil-kentauris.tumblr.com/), or on discord. 
> 
> **CURRENTLY:** sleeping  
>  **ABOUT TO:** get back to the actual writing part of this project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone has a very bad day that keeps getting worse.

_\------------------------_

THREE MONTHS AGO

1/22/2008

U Street, Washington DC

\------------------------ 

“I said,” I shouted again, over the loud disrupted cackle of EDM pop chords, “I just got promoted!”

The man gave a small, polite smile and continued sipping at his single mimosa. “Right,” he said. “You said that.”

“I did?” I said. Maybe I had. Probably. Hard to hear over the music and dead fucking god the damn music. Like being shot in the fucking chest every second. Course I wouldn’t know how that felt. They never let me out in the field. Couldn’t get shot if I had to stay inside all day, wandering around DC to waste my imaginary tail’s time, occasionally translating a document if – _if_ – I was so lucky. Boring as fuck. I was _ready,_ man. About fucking time, too.

He nodded. He was cute. I think he was cute. Hard to tell. It was half dark, and the lights were strobing, and I didn’t lose count of drinks but I think I may have forgotten the significance of the numbers themselves.

“I mean at the end of the night,” I helpfully informed him. “Symbols are signs and they’re all arbitrary, so what the fuck does it matter about words anyway? Did I tell you I got promoted today?”

He placed two dark fingers lightly to his forehead, and took a deep breath.

“Mm,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “Right. Yeah, I’m excited about it.”

“I can tell,” he said, twisting around in his seat, finally, in an exaggerated motion. “If you’re going to go on about it, at least tell me what it is you do?”

“Uh,” I said. Can’t really drop _espionage_ in a club. Could you? Better not, probably get arrested. But my cover ID was boring, and saying _oh I’m a contractor for_ was basically the same deal around these parts, I figure, people knew and you knew they knew and if you both knew that you knew then you might as well say the thing in the first place and get it over with. It’s all just signs.

The man started tapping his knuckles, a tiny motion against the bar.

“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t talk about it.”

But saying that is about one step away from _neither confirm nor deny_ and that, too, basically is a yes.

“My boss is a real hardass,” I added, a nice lie to make it seem less suspicious. “Real hardass. He says- She? They?”

Come to think of it…

I’d been sitting at my desk trying not to fall asleep when I’d gotten the envelope. The letter inside said I’d gotten reassigned to _AP_ _Division,_ whatever the fuck that was, said to standby, that instructions would be there in a few days, yada yada. Importantly…had it actually said anything about my boss?

I must have checked. Hadn’t I? I would have. God, I was starting to develop a headache.

“You don’t know who your boss is,” the man said, dubiously. He was probably beginning to doubt that I actually had gotten a top secret classified promotion to what was probably a high speed danger action man posting with a blacksite full of superspies. Just like the movies, no matter what Yancy said about “real agencies” this and “real agencies” that. Bullshit.

I shrugged. “Bullshit, right? They don’t even tell me who I’m working for. That’s the lobbying business for you!”

The man took a moment to lean back over the bar and rest his head on his hand. Unfair. For coming up with a career path off the top of my head I thought I could have done worse.

Then his gaze strayed to the large industrial black wristwatch on his arm. He shook his head softly, and muttered something that sounded, even with the BLUB BLUB of the music, like a sarcastic _he’s gonna love you._

“Who?” I said. “Are you talking about me? Because everyone loves me. It’s why the… _lobbyists…_ keep me around.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting home right about now?” he said, standing and sliding a bill under his glass in one suave motion. “Don’t you have work tomorrow, or is that promotion thing…”

“No, no!” I said, hopping up in an equally suave way and only tripping a little bit. “No, it’s a thing. It’s a thing, that I have, that I have to do, at some point. In the future. A few days, I think. Who knows. It’s bureaucracy. But yeah, you’re right, I should get home.”

At least, judging by how unevenly the world seemed to be moving around at the moment, I should get home. As for the CIA it wasn’t like I couldn’t walk around DC endlessly without a hangover. I was beginning to suspect I was being given busywork.

“Take you home?” he offered, reaching out a hand to steady me, not that I wasn’t steady already. He flicked his eyes over me, stopping for a second too long on my lips, then let me see the faintest little crinkle of smile lines near his eyes.

“You know,” I said, settling for confidence rather than surprise and ending up with neither. “I was getting pretty sure you didn’t actually like me.”

“Whatever gave you that impression?” he said, letting me lean on him a little as we threaded our way out of the bar. “I love our local lobbyists.”

“Yeah, well-” I said, feeling a smidge of guilt. He had a dead serious tone. Did they make lobbyist baseball cards? Did he have some?

“The hard work they do for our local communities, the _value_ they bring to the democratic system, the _intrinsic_ expression of pluralism on a small incorporated scale-”

“Please stop,” I said, the violently cold winter air mixing with the number of political issues he was talking about in an unpleasantly painful way. The headache squeezed a little tighter. I needed another drink.

“But the work you do-”

“Here’s the thing,” I said, cutting him off as he began opening the door of his expensive, sleek, ‘catching looks from passerby’ sedan. I was a bike guy. Didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate the thing’s lines, though. MM. “Here’s the thing – and I get it if you walk away right now – but I lied. I don’t work for lobbyists.”

He grinned, a slow thing that started as a half -smile, and ended up as something wry and a bit sharp. Then he pulled me into his arms – fully into his arm, clasped them together behind by back and let them rest there. He kept on smiling, his face only a few inches from mine, but his eyes were empty.

“I know you lied, Mike,” he said, simply. The smile grew another few millimeters.

“Wait…” I said, trying to pull away from him and finding it a little difficult. “I don’t…I don’t think I told you my name. I don’t think I did.”

Something was wrong.

“You didn’t,” he said.

The needlepoint pain in my thigh lasted only a second before I couldn’t feel, before I couldn’t breathe. Before I couldn’t stand. I dropped into his arms and he started saying _hey now, let’s get you home,_ and then the world dissolved into nothing but the vague hum of an engine, and some final silence.

 

_\------------------------_

01(?)/??/2008

???

_\------------------------_

I felt like shit.

Every muscle in my body ached. The world went to white then black then back to white again while my eyes kept refocusing without permission. Pain pinged through my arm like a radar signal. My vision blurred into focus for a moment; tubes looped over one another, ending under a white sterile pad on the inside of my forearm. A small trail of dried blood leaked out from under it, dried rusty red against the amber brown of my skin. My eyes fogged over again, and all that stayed was the feel of the needle splitting apart every single individual atom of every single keratinocyte cell in my skin.

Drugs, that’s what this felt like. Someone – someones? - had drugged me. Thought I knew better than that. I had _training_ for that, for fuck’s sake. _Fuck_ , my arm hurt.

I tore at the needle, fingers clumsy and missing the first time, but not the second.

A machine began screaming in the background as soon as I pulled the needle out.

“Someone stole my clothes,” my mouth said, once my eyes decided to join the party. I was in a strange cross between hospital scrubs and pajamas, the fabric sea green with a huge QR code on the shirt’s front pocket. The _hell_ had I been up to last night?

Celebrating…celebrating…celebrating a job offer. Things began bubbling back up. Some uncountable number of drinks with that burned going down. Something about the way some stranger at the bar had smiled. Something about – _fuck_ , I remember now – something about lies and lobbyists. Oh, _fuck_ I remember now.

Panic started settling. Enemy territory. Kidnapping. Why? AP Division? I didn’t know anything about it. I hadn’t even had my first goddamn day of work yet…so maybe it was regular company business. But I didn’t know much about that, either. The shit that went down with Yancy was the only interesting thing I knew and everyone else seemed to know more about that that me. If they were going to kill me they would have done it there, so…what then? Who what where why?

Calm down, Mike.

You can handle this. Whatever this is. Where ever you are. _When_ ever you are. Felt like two minutes. Felt like two years. Look on the bright side. Keep morale up. Think about it: kidnapping is the most exciting thing that had happened to you in years.

The world kept swirling around me, and when I stood up, sore aches seeped up and down my legs. The machine screeched on.

Keep it light.

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a freight train,” I said.

The room that they had stashed me in was empty, thankfully. It was plain and except for the odd medical equipment scattered about, sparse. Four walls, two of which were made of glass panels. It had a single exit, door in the glass leading to a room full of abandoned computer workstations. A lab, maybe? A…I didn’t fucking know. It was strange, creepy, all the lights in the computer room were off and the monitor screens deadened, whereas in my room, every single light was on.

On the counter nearest to the single door, a PDA chimed and added a little more light to the air. A face appeared on the screen, a young Asian woman with a precise ponytail full of maroon hair, massive black hoop earrings, and what looked like a wool winter jacket with a high collar that covered most her neck.

“Good, you’re awake,” she said, light tone cutting over the alarms with ease. “I wasn’t sure how long you’d be under. Those tranquilizers wore off fast.”

There weren’t any cameras in my room, not that I could see, and her PDA didn’t have an angle on me. Which meant there were cameras in the room, ones that I _couldn’t_ see, and that I was being watched, for god only knew why.

But the woman on the PDA wanted me awake.

Which is…better than dead, I suppose.

I didn’t much want to be dead right now.

Allies, then.

For the moment.

“Where am I?” I asked cautiously, limping my way over to the counter. Jarring, cross-hatched pain spiked in every step.

“You’re locked in our medical bay, and when the guards find out you’ve regained consciousness, they’ll put you under again.”

“Don’t want that. Any reason why you’re helping me…?”

“Mina. Let’s just say I’m not a fan of the indoctrination procedure here.”

Indoctrination.

For…

Mm. The headache was kicking back in.

Indoctrination didn’t sound like a good thing. Didn’t sound like something I had time for at the moment. I had to get home. Water my plants. Apologize profusely to my boss. Not get inducted against my will into a dead-eyed group of maybe mad scientists, maybe spies. I had regular people things to do.

“All the more reason to leave then,” I said.

“And how do you propose to do that? You’re locked in, there’s a guard outside. Eventually, he’s going to come check on you. And when he does…”

“I’ll think of something.”

I could see said guard on a monitor in my room. A monitor that was playing feed of the outside hallway? Confusing, but helpful. The man was wearing sunglasses _and_ camouflaged body armor, so think, Mike. He was either a douche, or at least part of his patrol was outside. No visible marks of rank, no visible weapons.

“Let me check the room,” I said. “There’s got to be another way out.”

“All right then…” Mina said skeptically. “Don’t take too long.”

Four walls, one door. I paced around it again. Four walls, one door. Four walls…one door. I could do doors. There were enough tools in here to finagle a makeshift lockpick set, including a tray of tool that looked uncomfortably similar to dentist’s tools sitting on a side counter.

Don’t think about why. Don’t think about fabricated dental records. Don’t think about cyanide caps. We’re modern, here. We’re calm. We’re not gonna die. We’re not gonna get indoctrinated.

I held my hands up. They were still shaking.

I could do it. I was good at locks.

“The door’s locked down,” Mina offered helpfully, a hint of pity staining her tone, “but you might be able to find a way to break the glass.”

A way to break the glass. That was a better idea. Even better, there was a fire extinguisher tucked away in the back corner of a room.

Keep it light.

“In case of emergency,” I said, and flung it. For a moment, the delicate sound of glass snapping apart was louder than the medical alarms in the room.

A searing external alarm went off a split second later. Even with my ears covered the sound was loud enough and hard enough that I had to start blinking tears free.

“Well, that did it,” Mina began to redundantly note, her voice a whisper in the cacophony. “We’ve got alarms going off-”

She was cut off by a loud, rumbling, digitally scrambled transmission from the main PA system.

“Guess Sleeping Beauty’s had enough,” the voice said. The mocking tone managed to carry through even the impersonal computerized effect of a voice scrambler. “That you Mike? You just hold on - I’m sending some guards to tuck you back in.”

Right on cue, the guard from the monitor came charging into the computer room. I ducked behind a desk, waited until the man ran by, then put my years of mixed martial arts training to use. A quick spinning elbow to the nose, a punch to the solar plexus, and a follow-up kick to the same place. Sunglassses went limp and collapsed in a pile, and I slid down beside him. My arms were killing me. I needed a second. My fingers were beginning to fall asleep, pins and needles kicking up on my fingertips. The hell’d they given me, and when the fuck was it going to wear off?

Take a second. Breathe. Stretch a little.

There was a door on the other end of the room, also bordered by glass panes. The hallway behind it was deserted, devoid of people and features and even sound. The alarm faded away after half a minute of walking – shut off, or did this hallway just have good soundproofing? The deafness was more unsettling than the noise. They knew where I was. Why weren’t they here? No one was waiting in the room the hallway ended in either, another empty computer room where a massive monitor sat atop a bank of buttons and smaller screens, knobs and sliders. The monitor was displaying four different angels of my glass covered room. Security station, then. An _empty_ security station. There were three other doors, each leading to another set of hallways. I picked one at random. Mina didn’t saying anything. Nor did she say anything the next time two times I had to pick a door at random. Endless expanses of tile floor and concrete walls and fluorescent lights and silence.

“Try the door on the right,” Mina finally offered, her first words in what had to have been almost ten minutes.

The sun was blinding. I stumbled back blinking from the sudden infusion light. In between the blue spots, the room looked like a lobby, a large fancy lobby, in fact. I was on the second floor. A metropolitan metal railing surrounded a gap in the middle of the upper floor, and tasteful planters were scattered around. In case, you know, kidnapped agents wanted to take a look at the gardenias. Or whatever you put in planters. Natural sunlight was coming from somewhere in the ceiling. I couldn’t tell where. The angles were strange. I walked a little further in, shielding my eyes, and I almost missed the agent in a suit walking around. Another agent was patrolling on the other side of the symmetrical room. The first was close, the noise of his hard polished black dress shoes on hard polished marble loud, and perfect cover. I was barefoot, in pajamas. He didn’t hear a thing. I had his pistol out of his holster and pointed at the base of his neck before he noticed.

“Who you working for?” I asked, kindly, and dug the barrel of the abnormally large weapon into the tip of his spine.

Instead of answering, he moved. I shot. He collapsed with a choked shout, a long, simple glass-like dart with a blue and white stabilizer tail embedded in his back.

The other guard looked up. He swept his own pistol forward. I didn’t have time to check how reloading worked on this. I pointed and hoped and fired. The dart hit a little low, nesting in between his lower ribs. He frowned and looked at it, then at me, then dropped.

Voiced echoed from the ground floor of the lobby.

“How did he wake up so fast?” one man said. “He just got here!”

“Who cares, we’ll just put him under again,” the other responded.

“Mike, they’ve dispatched a squad to this area,” Mina informed me.

“Don’t make this any harder than it was to be,” suggested the voice on the PA.

“Cover the door, I’m going up,” one of the new guys said.

Too much noise, all at once.

“It’s on,” I muttered.

 

I dragged the other unconscious guard out of the sightlines. _Now_ I got what the planters were for. In case a kidnapped agent needed somewhere to hide. I counted my breaths and waited for a set of footsteps to get close, closer-

He choked on a shout as the tranq dart sunk into the center of his throat, rather than his chest, where I’d been aiming. The recoil on this thing was so much worse than it should have been.

Someone cursed downstairs. The radio on the belt of the both guards crackled. I rolled out from behind the planter, crept up to the side of the rail as fast as I could without making noise.

“You okay?” the voice asked over the radio.

He was looking the wrong direction. Ten, twenty meters away. I could make that, easy. I rested the pistol in between gaps in the railing, just in case. Lined it up.

“I’m coming up,” he said into his radio, and turned around and saw me. This time, though, the dart did hit in the right place.

He collapsed on the ground, radio clattering one way and gun spinning off the other, coming to rest on the corner of a green pattern. It looked to be a massive seal, in-laid in green against the rest of the lobby’s cream-colored marble. _Alpha Protocol_ , it announced. The seal depicted a talon grasping wildly at a snake, surrounded by stars and fletched arrows. On the bottom of the seal, a banner read _quo nemo sequi potest._

Alpha Protocol…as in AP. As in, possibly, _AP Division?_

I looked over at the prone form of a potential coworker with a dart sticking out of his neck.

“Almost gave me the slip,” the slightly menacing, rumbling voice from earlier said. “Now we gotcha.”

Then again, would a potential boss say that?

And would he send the two more guys with rifles charging into the bottom of the lobby? I backpedaled and ran back into the computer room. Time for door number three.

“Don’t-” Mina started, then sighed.

“Don’t what?”

But there was silence.

The hallway went on, and on, and finally ended with an entrance to what looked like a massive loading bay. _Bingo!_   A way outside. I was on a second story platform, and a guard was right in front of the door.

“Any sign of our new arrival?” he was shouting to another man on a similar platform across the room.

“No sign of him yet!” shouted back another sunglasses-wearing guard who looked to be enjoying his job too much. I waited until he walked off to spin kick the man in front of me, and haul him over my shoulder.

“Careful, Mike,” Mina reasserted unnecessarily from my pocket. “Truck coming in – and guards at the exit.”

A truck then obliged her by trundling in through a metal garage door that rolled up to allow the vehicle through, then rolled back down. Sunlight failed to shine through the open garage door. Only the murky darkness of a downward sloping tunnel showed. So much for outside.

“Try to stay out of sight if you can,” Mina said.

I had intended to follow that advice. But I admit, I was annoyed about being drugged and kidnapped, and, I did have the high ground and enough rounds of tranquilizer darts to take out the entire room.

Then I missed my first shot. And the omnipresent alarms went off, as did the PA system and several weapons.

“Over there! Stop the truck, I see him!” the guard that I’d missed shouted.

“You’ve done it now, Mike,” Potential Boss added on the PA, “Too bad for you.”

 “Mike, get out of there,” Mina chimed in.

To my credit, I didn’t intend to blow the truck up. But a guy had a rifle locked on to my head, and the truck had been parked next to rusty gas barrels, and the tranq pistol was stupid tough to aim. And if I couldn’t see that there were additional barrels _behind_ the truck, that was hardly my fault. It _was_ an effective distraction, though. I had to find my way through the room with my hands held in front of me, bumbling around through the smoke and shouting until I knocked a knuckle against another door. The next room was a monitoring station and display screen showing camera feed. I swear I'd been there before. Identical, except this room had one wall with a long glass window. A smaller room was on the other side. There were only three pieces of furniture: one of those metal tables with hooks for handcuffs and two metal chairs with hard angles. It could have been an interrogation room if not for the set of TVs covering the entire back wall.

“End of the line, Mike. Give it up,” Potential Boss said over the speakers as the door to the interrogation room opened up. Above it was another camera. I shot it defiantly.

“Mike, stay where you are, don’t-” Mina warned, but her voice ended in a burst of static. The televisions in the other room began buzzing. Potential Boss’s voice started echoing from the speakers. End of the line was right. _Quo nemo sequi potest._..if this was what I really hoped it wasn't, then tnd of the line it was. 

 

_\----------------_

_Now_

_4/24/08_

_Interrogation Room A_

_\----------------_

_Feed from at least eight different cameras played out over the bank of wall TVs. Some shots would have been impossible even for Alpha Protocol to obtain: one showed the clumsily rendered inside of Flight 6133. I doubt a camera survived the wreck, even if anyone had been filming. Which agent had been selected to create 3D models of mothers and fathers and and the plane, to splice the renders together, to find the right moments to cut to recorded footage of the Halbech missiles streaking towards the jet?_

_Henry Leland stood in front of the screens, engrossed in the replay of the tragedy unwinding, covered in money and coated in smoke. Tailored suit and a massive cigar and a gold-plated wristwatch that shone like it was on fire when the guards opened the door. They threw me at his feet._

_Without turning around, he began speaking to me._

_“If anyone is to blame for these events, Mr. Thorton…” he announced, ignoring my reflection on the screens as they all simultaneously shut off._

_Leland turned his head ever so slightly_ _and continued grandly, “…it is you. Alpha Protocol began here, after all.”_

_Yeah, began here and was gonna end here. One of us wasn’t going home tonight, that was for damn sure._

_\------------------------_

Then

1/22...23(?)/2008

???

_\------------------------_

“All right, Mike, that’s enough,” the voice chastised. The TVs began to fizzle.

“‘That’s enough?’ I think that’s my line,” I said.

On the banks of televisions, an older man’s face clicked into view. I didn’t know whether to angry, or relieved. He was eminently familiar. Wrinkled, deep brown skin. Hair that still, somehow, was resisting going gray. A grim neutral look that was either vaguely approving or vaguely disapproving depending on where you were standing, or on if you’d already annoyed him that day. Usually, I managed to do _something_ to annoy him even before his painfully early morning wakeup time. Yancy Westridge – uncle, mentor, friend. Man who recruited me into the CIA a little over two years ago, now. Pretty much the only family I can talk to about what’s going on with me, what with most of my life locked behind little black REDACTED bars. He left us recently to work on something quote end quote _more important._

This whole thing was beginning to strike me as unfair.

He was _way_ too close to the camera.

“The hell’s going on?” I said. Shouted. Tried not to shout. “Why did you drug me?”

“We need to keep the location of this facility…”, he started, then emphatically stepped away from the camera, sparing me further examination of his nose hairs.

“…confidential. Especially if you got kidnapped and questioned.”

“You mean like now?”  I said.

He glared, wrinkled forehead gaining even more lines.

Fine. If that’s how he wanted to play it…then fine, I guess. I trusted him. Enough to set this aside, anyway.

Enough to _mostly_ set it aside.

“Real friendly welcome to a new recruit, Yancy.” I said, with slightly less overt anger.

“We’re not in the business of making friends,” he joked.

“Let me guess – you’re not done hazing me yet?”

“Yep!” Yancy said cheerfully. “I’m going to ask you some questions, run you through some more tests, then you and I can talk...face to face. That make you feel better?”

“No, but some morphine might. Or whatever cocktail you shot into my system. What the hell was that?”

“That’s classified,” he said, suddenly detached. “Although I didn’t expect you to shake it off so quickly.”

He shook his head.

“You treat all the recruits like that, or am I just special?” I said, trying to distract myself from a renewed wave of annoyance and adrenaline mixed up with relief. They were combining pretty poorly.

Yancy didn’t lighten up.

“That’s classified as well,” he said flatly. “And as far as most everyone else knows, we don’t know one another. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t mean to pry.”

“You’re not gonna be much use to us if you don’t mean to pry, Mike. Just make sure you do the prying to someone else.”

“Okay…” I said. “So…when you said you had something big in the wings…did you mean this, or…?”

He sighed, but with a smile.

“Mike, I know it’s been a while, but right now, we’ve go work to do. I’m going to let you out of the pen here and meet the rest of the crew.”

The rest – Mina. I suddenly realized what she meant by ‘not a fan of the indoctrination procedure’. Me neither. I owed that woman a debt of gratitude.

“All right. Is there anything I should know?”

“Nothing you can’t find out on your own - and from the staff here.”

That’s what a new hire wants to hear who nearly blew up half the secret agents he works with wants to hear. Ask the staff to help you out.

But Yancy kept talking, unaware of the predicament he’d gotten me into. Or aware, and not thinking it was a predicament at all. Probably the latter.

“They’ll be taking you through the basics of weapons, gadgets, and espionage tactics…when you’re cleared on the basics, come find me for your assignment. I won’t lie to you, Mike” he said, “It's a big one – and dangerous-”

He emphasized the point by getting really close to the camera again, so close I instinctively took a step back.

“-but I think you’re the man for the job. Make the rounds, I’ll see you soon.”

Then he disappeared from the screen. Red diagnostics, graphs, maps, even a schematic of some grenades popped up in his place. The door at the back of the room opened on its own – a clear order even without instructions.

“Big ass screen,” I muttered in final judgment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 1 and Day 2 of the writing exercise. Poor Westridge. He has so much fun with orientation, you get the feeling he doesn't get out much. Plus, he really doesn't seem to understand how cameras work. It's very confusing. I bet he's the one responsible for buying so many TVs.
> 
> //d158 edits applied  
> //Flamethrower Edits applied jan '18


	2. Consumer Fireworks are Illegal Up North

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone commits both arson *and* assault to get a good grade, and more importantly, in which said someone gets to meet the best, most qualified, and certainly, the most favorite member of Alpha Protocol's Team Six. At least, he'd _better_ be the favorite member.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **! ! ! ! IMPORTANT NOTE ! ! ! !**  
>  many things have happened to the first 14 chapters. please refer to the initial work notes for changes! thanks!

They call our base of operations ‘The Greybox’. They should call it the grey _boxes_. The place was a maze of featureless rooms combined in new and exciting ways. The more of it I saw, the more lost I got. I wandered through a security station three times before the agent stationed there took pity on me. Clara, apparently forced by “that asshole Parker” to check the systems yet again, pointed me to the locker room. My clothes were there – thanks Yancy – not that they helped. I felt terrible. I looked worse. I needed a shave. And a shower. And some sleep, real sleep, and not whatever that drugged state counted as. And a snack. And to make a good first impression on my teammates. And to receive my first mission, and to find Mina, and and and.

Someone had left me what looked like a Bluetooth. I took it and was heading out when Mina’s voice came through the earpiece.

“Orientation’s not mandatory – you can turn around and go back to Westridge right now, although that might make him upset.”

There’s the catch. Better to work on settling in for now, and napping on the job later. I did, though, find a snack machine next to the room marked on my map, so I did my best to kill two birds with one stone and munched on an energy bar as I headed to meet my first teammate.

 

If Hollywood has led the American public to love any one aspect of spying, it’s the gadgets. Personally I had always remained firmly convinced, despite Yancy’s constant entreaties to the opposite, that somewhere out there, some agency was as in love with the idea of mystery tech MacGuffins as I was. Gadgets Orientation. Yancy had been holding out on me. This was high treason.

As was the Gadgets Director.

Mother _fuck_ had Alpha Protocol kidnapped all of my CIA contacts, I see.

“Mikey…be with you in a moment, I’m just settin’ some things up in here,” Sean Darcy called. He hadn’t changed much, voice still animated and laid-back at the same time, like he was one word short of breaking into a joke, or rather, like he had been laughing about one just right before I walked in. He’d let his blond hair grow back, no longer a collection of black spikes, no longer a man inhabiting the edge of egdy. Although…he was opting to assume a casual, almost cocky stance with his back to the door even though there was a rolling desk chair further down the corner desk. And yeah, he had on a tucked-in white business-like button down, but he wore almost like he didn’t really care if he was wearing it or not, like having it tucked in was just some freak accident. He still had his impractical, black leather high-riding shoulder holster. Empty, as usual. Like he didn’t need it. Wouldn’t have needed it even if he’d had it.

Sean goddamn Darcy. Had I forgiven him for trying to get me fired? No. Was I going to? Not likely. Was I nevertheless glad to see him?

Well, actually…

First Yancy Westridge, then Sean. This double dose of déjà vu needed to stop. If someone turned up mysteriously dead tomorrow I was out.

“I’m gonna be running you through tech orientation,” Darcy added.

“You could start with ‘hey’,” I suggested, and snatched his chair. If he wasn’t gonna use it, then I was.

“Hey is for horses,” he said, clunking away loudly on a mechanical keyboard.

“Another thing that works is ‘how’ve you been Mike? Sure am sorry for trying to steal your job’.”

It was like trying to talk to a piece of titanium.

“So…” I said. It wasn’t true. He did look different. He had a set of shard scattered scars across his right forearm, newish, looked like. And it was like he’d suffered a revolution internally. Baggy rebel man jeans and skater boy band shirts gone. When you started staring at the details, you began to realize than sans sports jacket, he could have walked straight out of a fucking James Bond movie. His clothes fit to a fucking T, in a ‘I spent several hundred dollars on these, and yeah, I know I look good’ way.

He’d done a full 180, and managed not to change much at all.

“You been with Alpha Protocol for a while?” I asked, bored and fidgeting in my chair.

“Sure have, although you seem to have gotten my next assignment.”

Uh _huh._ “No hard feelings, I hope?” I said, exaggerating, hoping he could hear the _that’s goddamn right_ in my voice.

“Are you kidding?” he said broadly. “All right, that should be the last of the setup on my end.”

Darcy finally turned around, crossed his arms, and smiled. Yep, same Darcy. Same eyes. They weren’t quite blue, and they weren’t quite grey. They _were_ expressive, though what the hell they expressed at any given moment was anyone’s guess.

“Glad you finally showed up,” he enunciated, flicking his eyes briefly over me, not settling on any one point. “Thought you might a gotten lost on the way here – or were too busy beating up some more guards.”

Ah, not that again. I got the feeling I’d never live it down. “Neither,” I said professionally. You couldn’t give Sean ammo. “Just surveying the area, actually, checking out the facility.”

He seemed disappointed, or maybe skeptical. “Yeah, sure. Oh, by the way, _not_ a good idea – hitting the guards, I mean. The ones here have a lot of time on their hands, and that means a lot of time to hold grudges.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I told him, “but I wasn’t expecting to be drugged and attacked.”

“A good agent’s ready for anything, Mikey,” Sean Darcy retorted, leaning into the suggestion and smirking. “But enough chit chat – we got a lot of work ahead of us – well, _you_ do, I’m mostly here as an observer.”

He wanted me to say something. So I didn’t say anything.

He raised an eyebrow, and shrugged. “I’ll be doing your evaluation, too,” he finished.

Past his shoulder, above the computer desk, a bank of windows looked out over what looked like a rectangular pit. A couple of monitors showed the bottom of the room held a rusty truck, a cabinet, and a lean-to like house sitting against the wall.

“What’s that out there?” I asked. “A used car lot?”

“A target range for you. For me, more like a shooting gallery. Head out the door,” he instructed, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a door next to the windows, “and we’ll get started.”

“All right, then,” I told him, as I pretended not to notice his reflection watching me head to the door.

 

* * *

 

All of the grenades glowed. The concussion grenades had a glowing yellow band around center. The EMP grenades – we had EMP grenades – glowed blue. There were red ones and white ones, too. It was a beautiful sight.

“Open the locker and equip yourself,” Sean’s voice crackled into existence in my earpiece. “If you use ‘em all, just come back and grab some more.”

I was tempted to grab them all, but a buzzing message on my PDA let me know only to mess with the yellow ones right now.

“All right,” he chimed back in enthusiastically, “everyone’s favorite – grenades. Let’s see that arm of yours – go on, start chucking ‘em. They’re concussion rounds, so don’t be skittish – they sting, not kill.”

That a challenge? I took two, flung the first one too far and the second one not nearly far enough. But they both went off in quick succession and the target stayed down, so I’d count it as a win. Did I mention I was drugged this morning?

I doubted Darcy cared about excess grenades. Approved, more like.

“All right, now how ‘bout something more challenging,” he said. “Try a ricochet to hit the target behind the wall.”

There was, in fact, a bit of a half-wall towards the back of the room. I hadn’t noticed it at first, it was so short.

“Lob it behind the target,” he instructed, “and use the wall for a hookshot.”

Following step-by-step instructions didn’t exactly qualify as a challenge…was that his point? Maybe he had paid attention to the wasted grenades. I pulled off the shot with one this time, thankfully.

“Now – try and get one through the window.” From the Orientation room, he waved towards to lean-to treehouse looking structure stuck up on the wall. The gap in the front was more of a hole than a window. I overhanded it behind the pop-up target. Almost before the grenade had a chance to detonate, he was back on the earpiece.

“Now for some fireworks…try and chuck one beneath the truck and take out the gas tank.”

Caused the destruction of an Alpha Protocol truck – you’re ripping off my style, Sean. The truck exploded magnificently, taking the target behind it along, and almost claiming part of my head. Here’s a good way to tell if you’re not at your best: you bomb a car and forget to take cover.

“Ahh...never get tired of that one. Now – see that electronic lock there? Use your EMP grenade to shut it down. Can save you time in the field.”

The door wasn’t behind any kind of defensive wall. They didn’t play around in Alpha Protocol. Well, neither did I. Especially when it came to EMP grenades. I gently rolled the EMP grenade at the door and jumped the counter. The thing erupted in a cloud of visible static electricity. You could feel the surge in your teeth, god _damn_. It felt like a thundercloud had imploded in front of me, cover or not. I tried, and failed, to blink blue spots out of my eyes.

“It’s Shut Down!” Darcy crowed. “ZZZT! No more lock.”

No shit, Darcy. I could see the doors had swung open, with what was left of my vision. To add to the headache, now my eyes ached.

In the next room, large shipping crates took up the center. Another cabinet filled with brightly lit grenades learned on the furthest wall, next to a corrugated roll-up door. A regular door was opposite the roll-up one, behind the shipping crates.

“All right,” he continued. “See that locker there?”

On the shelf was a very strange thing. It had the look of a grenade, but it also had spidery black wires interlacing one another as they dipped in and out of a smooth central core.  A thin white LED strip lined the top. The shelf was labeled SHOCK TRAP – USE WITH EXTREME CAUTION.

If the last one _didn’t_ require a warning, what did this one do?

“Let me guess,” I wondered out loud as a pulsing red light activated over the room’s sole regular door, “You want me to place one on the door?”

“You got it.”

As soon as I placed it I took cover behind a shipping crate, dashing this time. The shock trap stayed dormant, though.

“Nice!” Darcy said. “And just in time…”

“For what?” I began to ask, when a voice from beyond the door cut me off.

“Hey, Darcy,” a man called innocently, “Open up!”

I pressed myself against the crates. The power of my mental chanting did nothing. They knocked anyway.

A familiar buzz zipped through the air, and the door opened, the body of a guard slumped against it, twitching.

Darcy snickered.

“Guess some of the other guards’ll be pulling double shifts for a while,” he said.

On second thought, I’d skip getting a nap and take the hit on my orientation scores. It was  never going to be safe for me to close my eyes in the Greybox. The corrugated door creaked open as I pondered a way out of my current situation with the guards. Then Darcy found yet another way to make the situation worse.

“Know those guards you beat up when you got out of medical?”

“Very aware of that,” I muttered.

“Yeah…well, they’re gonna be joining us in a second.”

I opted for a polite silence. This was no ‘us’ problem. This was a ‘me’ problem that he’d created.

He offered his opinion anyway.

“You got a head start, so if I were you, I’d set an ambush – or just start running. Me, I’d use the mines, that’s what they’re there for.”

And as much as I hated it at the moment, he was right.

 

* * *

 

The guards acted like they had never seen shiny light-up grenades before. All I had to do was a stick a few to some of the various columns supporting the room, lure them over with a shout and sudden appearance, and watch them run into the hazy electric puffs. I would have felt sorry for them, but one of them prefaced his assault with, “Hey, Thorton, we just want to talk to you,” while running his gun loudly along the floor. Hard to feel sorry for someone like that.

After checking the breathing of all three guys, I gestured two-thumbs up to the nearest camera.

“Man, the doc’s gonna be pissed,” Sean said, with a laugh.

He sounded like he was leaning back in his chair eating popcorn. Why, exactly, had I gotten this important, dangerous mission instead of the resident veteran? No one knows.

 

* * *

 

“So, Mikey, you did alright on the basic run,” Darcy began as soon as I opened the door, despite facing the opposite direction, still standing, working on a keyboard. Next to an imposing series of charts and graphs displayed on his monitor was a more useful numerical breakdown. I got a 110. An A++, I believe.

“You know, that performance wasn’t half bad – almost as good as my record,” he admitted, giving up on typing for a moment and looking back over his shoulder at me.  He grinned with his flippant half-smile.

I looked down at the still smoking course outside the window.

“How about we up the stakes, take this to the big leagues?” he asked.

The big leagues of what? Are we going to blow up the building this time?

“Maybe some other time, Darcy,” I declined. “I just want to get out of here and get my assignment.”

He shrugged. “Your loss then. I _thought_ you might be scared. I mean I don’t blame ya – it’s a big world out there, full of risks.”

“I’m reporting to Yancy, Darcy, and I _don’t_ want to keep him waiting.” I forced myself to speak slowly, and with an even pitch, but grinding your teeth sounds hostile no matter what you do.

He kept up that stupid self-satisfied unabashed smile, saying nothing, and despite my determination, he was getting under my skin.

“There is nothing more to learn here,” I began again, “and I don’t have time for games."

Oh, that got him. He broke his gaze for just a quick second before retorting, “Knock yourself out then, boy scout, but it’s not going to matter.” Then he was back on point, smugly sizing the situation up. “Once you drop the ball, they’ll call _me_ in to get the job done.”

“We’ll see. More likely, you’ll be pushing the broom. Enjoy the rest of your custodial work today, and,” I said, adding a pointed stare towards the truck shrapnel down on the course, “I hope you enjoy cleaning up your training range.”

Dead silence.

We were locked in an unfortunate staring contest for several microseconds as I got a chance to mimic his usual hotshot expression. I’m not competitive, but I did win.

In the end, he shook off whatever hold the thought of cleaning had over him, casually tossed his shoulders back, and resumed his affected stance.

“All right, then – if you change your mind, the range is good to go.”

I was already walking away. He called towards me as I left, as animated and laid-back as he had been when I first met him, but this time challenging too.

“…whenever you feel up to it, that is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3, 4 Part 1, and 4 Part 2  
> //d159 edits live  
> //flamethrower edits live, original pub. 16 jul '16


	3. McDonald v. City of Chicago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn about gun safety, aiming, and the best way to look ~~idiotic~~ cool while shooting under cover.

The lounge was full of guards when I walked past, all of them crowded around a large TV mounted on a concrete support column. Something about Al-Samad was playing, and needing a break, I threaded my way through the guards to look up at it. It was Ali Shaheed, the omnipresent spokesperson of the world’s least likable gang. It was hard not to recognize him. The asshole had good branding.

 _“I am a man of my word, and this, I promise you,”_ he was ranting, first in Arabic, then English. _“This attack is but the first that Al-Samad brings against its enemies.”_

Charming man. He was referring, I'm sure, to the recent bombing of Flight 6133. If you were a civilian who lived under a rock you could have missed the news, and while for all I knew the Greybox was very literally under a rock, but I wasn’t a civilian. You couldn't be in the IC and have avoided hearing every detail the past few days. The death count (227). The surprise factor (no one saw it coming). And of course, Al-Samad in the middle of it all, claiming credit and stirring up trouble. Unfortunately, I appeared to be more interesting to the guards than Shaheed, because every one of them glared at me the entire time I was there. I watched the show for a good minute, Shaheed repeating variations on ‘Al-Samad and fire and doom and down with American pop culture’ until the broadcast finally ceased, and I, having proved my point, decided it might be for the best to belay a nap and continue the orientation, at least until I could get a chance to talk with Mina to get a better feel for my situation in the Greybox.

Everything was empty when I walked into Weapons Orientation. A front room much like Darcy’s was separated from the range by a bank of chicken-wire glass panes and a door.

“Hello?” I called, taking a moment to peek through the windows, “Anybody shooting in here?” Slim chance they’d hear me, but still.

The door squeaked behind me.

“Agent Thorton, hello,” a familiar voice said. Mina? She certainly looked like Mina.

“You’re the one I spoke to when I woke up in the medical bay?” I asked her. Maybe it was just seeing her for real and not on a crappy PDA screen, or maybe it was hearing her not through a garbled earpiece, but she seemed a little different. Maybe Yancy had instructed her to help me, and she wasn’t actually friendly.

“Glad that wasn’t a hallucination,” I added.

“It may have been,” she told me, reassuring to a fault. “Do you remember my name...or do I need to write it down for you?”

 _Ouch_.

“Mina, right?”

“That’s right,” she said, after a pause, sounding almost grateful. “Good to see you’ve recovered from the medical room with your memory intact.”

“Memory intact? Speaking of which, I don’t remember where I left my keys. Or my IDs.”

She dismissed my concerned expression with a quick head shake. “Confiscating personal items is quite routine, I wouldn’t worry about that. But let’s get down to the task at hand – I’m here to run you through the weapons training and test your accuracy.”

“All right. What’s the next step?”

She gestured over to the range beyond the window.

“Just head through the door to the firing range, and I’ll keep in contact with you over the earpiece. Head over to the table, get your weapons, and we can begin.”

 

* * *

 

The range rules were pretty standard, even for standard. The beginning half of orientation was basic, too, taking cover, aiming, looking badass while reloading SMGs, things that I knew by heart and could do even at my worst. It was when we got to the tactical range that things went slightly downhill.

“Now, with the pistol, you’ll want to be patient and attack when the targets get close,” she instructed as took down the first two moving targets shots to the chest. “Good!” she added, encouragingly.

When I started moving…

Mina was a true professional. If she disapproved at all, she didn’t let it show.

“And that’s enough,” she cut in tranquilly as soon as I finished shooting the targets to pieces. The range meandered through another wall to the assault rifle range, the final challenge. Instead of commenting on how I was doing, she began giving me Fun Facts about the Assault Rifle.

“For long range encounters, the assault rifle’s the key,” she began. I could mentally imagine her settling down with a self-compiled fact-checking notebook in hand. Between Darcy and Mina, I was getting the feeling no one really talked to any of these people. I hadn’t seen that many agents. And it didn’t seem like clocking out every day at 5 was a serious option. Maybe she wasn’t judging my skills, but just trying to have a conversation

Another thing to consider. In an agency chock-full of deadly operatives, no one much needs advice on what, exactly, an assault rifle does. You pretty much know. And there weren’t that many women around. I’d only seen Clara, and maybe one other guard, now that I thought about it.

Goddamn it.

Now I felt bad for her.

I was going to have to pay attention to a description about the various capabilities of a Hamilton AR 21, wasn’t I?

“It’s accurate, powerful,” she was outlining when I tuned back in. She had the tone of someone complimenting their child after the kid’s first soccer game or something, like she was personally proud of that rifle’s specs. “Just be sure to line your shots up carefully.”

I more or less followed her instructions as targets went this way and that way.

“Watch for attackers from above. They may be out of reach - but not rifle range.”

To my credit, I handled the final two long-distance targets well.

“That’s it,” she told me, “Take the ladder, head up the back. All done.”

 

* * *

 

By the time I made it back up, Mina was working on processing data.

“Good, Mike. I’m logging the results now,” she called as I walked up.

“All right…” I began, when I was rudely interrupted by a series of muffled shots from the range. “Is someone out on the course?”

“Darcy,” she said, resting on the border between spite and contempt. “He’s trying to beat your time.”

“He is? And here I thought he were going to be such good friends.”

“It’s like a cage match with you boys,” she said dismissively.

A few more shots went off in the range. Man, if I hadn’t been drugged…

“So, how’d I do on the course?” I asked out of a purely academic interest.

“Calling it up now!" she said, and kept typing over the noise of sporadic shots.

I tried not to mentally count them.

"Hang on," Mina said.

Onetwothree and then a bunch. Semi auto. _Someone_ sounded jealous.

"So..." I commented, and tapped my fingers against my side.

"Okay," she said, and clicked a few more times quickly. "You've got an 82. Not the best record, but still… I’ll log your score, have the results sent to your handler, and Westridge can give the rest of your evaluation provided you’ve completed the other tests.”

An 82. That was…well, passable. Ah well. _C’est la vie._

I must have looked dejected.

“You can give it another run, if you want,” Mina offered lightly, “the course should be free soon.”

Well-timed bursts from an SMG echoed faintly.

“Mm, I’ll pass,” I said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5. d159 edits live.  
> I didn’t like Mina a whole lot the first time I played through, but I feel kind of sorry for her now. She’s stuck in that box for three months helping you. At least Albatross gets a couple of vacations out of the whole affair.


	4. Organized Crime Control Act of 1970

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone agrees to try and impress Parker, because he doesn't know any better, poor guy, and in which someone has an ~~great~~ unfortunate idea regarding an even ~~better~~ more unfortunate co-worker and gets ~~graciously invited to~~ caught up in a ~~friendly teamwork building challenge~~ gambling/fighting ring

The door to espionage orientation said on a small metal plate said _Alan Parker_ and nothing else. Something Clara had said came to mind. Something about “that asshole Parker”. Parker’s a pretty common name, though. Yeah, probably the top forties.

I’d only made it halfway in the room when a man, older than Yancy and currently hunched over at his desk in a grey stiff swivel office chair, started fussing at me.

“This is a _restricted_ area. The vending machines are down the hall and to the right,” he growled. Funny thing, a restricted training area inside a restricted facility.

“I’m here for espionage training,” I offered.

“Westridge’s new recruit? Good!” He stopped typing and straightened up in his chair. I guess, despite the fact that you can see them from here, a lot of people kept barging in asking for vending machines. Given the hours they want you to put in and low, low price of the energy bars, I could buy that.

“There’s no time to waste,” he said, and spun around briskly to face me. “So. Orientation. You _are_ familiar with the premise of an obstacle course, I assume?”

“Yes,” I affirmed, leaving off the dozen other retorts I wanted to add. I’m an agent, not a four-year-old.

“We usually have out new recruits run through the basics,” he said, then frowned. Glanced back over at the screen. “But I’ve been reading your file – and running the numbers.”

He paused, seemed like he was considering something. Tapped his fingers along the armrest of his chair and looked and talked right through me.

“Your file had several…interesting gaps. Not enough experience in the field, but outstanding scores in stealth aptitude. Well above average – especially for a trainee.”

“Thanks!” I said. “Nice of you to read it.”

He stared past me for another second.

“I have an assignment for you,” he finally said. “This one won’t be logged.”

“What? You mean like a Covert Training Op? Aren’t you guys carrying Orientation too far?” I asked.

He scowled at me. “ _Nothing_ about Alpha Protocol is orientation, Agent Thorton, despite the semantics. The penalty for getting caught, however, won’t be a poor score – it’ll be detention. So…are you up for it or not?”

Get brownie points with Parker – check. Go on a mission – check. Alpha Protocol didn’t exactly seem like the kind of place you get casually fired from, so detention, AKA free breaktime – also a check. Yancy, being Yancy, would probably be only superficially disappointed if he found out, solution, don’t let him find out.

Darcy needed to learn a thing or two from this guy about how to properly bait someone into taking your challenge.

“Oh, I’m up for it,” I told him, not having to fake a nod this time. Parker spun around and grabbed a clipboard from under a pile of papers.

“Lemme see what you need,” I said, and took it.

The first thing that stood out was the location where I’d be going. The medical center.

“You want me to head back to the medical center? Why?”

He looked ready to throw something at me. After glowering for a few seconds, waiting for me to spontaneously get it, he pointed at the clipboard. In between several blacked-out lines was the exacting description of a plain manila envelope. It was 7 millimeters shorted than your average envelope, good to know. Manila colored, like this needed to be stated. Brand new envelope.

“What’s the file name?” The description mentioned that it had one, but for all its detail, failed to say what it was.

He took the clipboard back.

“Jacob. Not only will this be a much more practical use of your talents…but I think you’ll be curious to see where in the world you’re going to be sent.”

“Sounds like fun, actually.”

“We’ll see. Westridge gets, uh…” He looked at the ceiling while he tried to find the right word. “Angry, with people that bend the rules.”

Superficially angry. Inside, I’m sure he’d be proud.

After all, his rules were really hard to break properly.

“Fair enough,” I said.

He shrugged, as if he genuinely didn’t care whether I thought it was fair or not, then spun one final time around back to his desk and his program. I waited for a moment to see if he had anything else to say, then left for a return journey to the medical center.

 

* * *

 

Finding my way back from the medical center the first time had taken long enough, and that was with help. I was studying the map of the place on my PDA intensely as I made my way down the hallway, which might be why I didn’t see Darcy until I nearly ran into him leaving the range. Part of his shirt was untucked. His earmuffs were half torn off his head, caught up in his hair and hanging off an ear. He brushed past me without so much as a glance, and stormed off back to the gadgets orientation.

I suppose he didn’t beat my time, then.

I went back through a now empty lounge. Stopped. Everyone here seemed like that hadn’t talked to a real person in weeks. I couldn’t very well see any of the people I’d met so far getting along with one another. given that Parker’s mission would likely piss off Westridge, there was hardly any way of making things worse with anybody.

It was very likely I was going to get lost on the way to the medical center. And the concrete maze was both infuriating and tedious.

Aw, hell. At this exact moment I was just tired enough not to care if things derailed any further.

And the man had tried to take my record. What was I supposed to do, let that stand? 

 

* * *

 

The disassembled parts of what looked like a miniature shock trap were scattered across the desk Darcy immediately began leaning against, arms folded, when I walked in.  Did he _design_ the shock traps? A schematic of a finished product showed on one of his monitors, until he saw me looking at it and deliberately shut the screen off.

“Well…back again!” he said, crossing his arms once more, all audible traces of his earlier annoyance forgotten, or buried, maybe. “You lookin’ to give it another shot, Mikey?”

“Yeah. I want-” I tried to find the right way to bring up his challenge, without giving him the satisfaction of knowing I was still thinking about it- “to try and improve my performance.” I finished, knowing as soon as I said it that he was not going to let it slide.

“They have medication for that, Mike,” he said, with a solid smirk.

Why was I here again?

“I wouldn’t dream of taking anything from _your_ medicine cabinet, Darcy. Let’s just do this.”

He made me sit through a dramatic sigh as he stuck his hands in his pockets, and bobbed his head, pretending to think about whether or not to let me in on his challenge.

“All right,” he finally said, straightening up. “Me and the guards – who you already met when you woke up – pooled our petty cash, and we’d like to make ya a little bet.”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s a rematch – on our terms. It’s simple – disable all the alarms and escape the area in the time provided, and you take home the winnings. If you lose, you’ll owe us. Got it?”

I wasn’t feeling the word, escape. But I was in it now.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Just head into the range, and we’ll get to it, Mikey,”

“Tell your team to get ready,” I called over my shoulder as I headed out. Let’s do this.

 

* * *

 

The large room with the supporting columns was my destination. As soon as I got close, Sean Darcy took over my earpiece and started talking.

“So here we are…rematch, for you and the guards – but on their terms. So listen up.”

He began to lay out the rules, an armchair spectator of a sport no one else cared about. Except I was the player, and the sport was getting the shit kicked out of me. The part of me that had known this was a bad idea was celebrating. I ignored it.

“There’s alarms hidden all over the course,” he said. “All you need to do is shut them down – but the guards are gonna try and reset them.”

“What’s the catch?”

“Every time an alarm goes off, another squad’s comin’ in. And they all want a shot at you, trust me. Alarm goes off enough times, and you’re gonna get trampled. But…” Darcy dangled this ray of hope for a good second, waiting for me to ask and then giving up. “You have the technology to beat ‘em. So let’s see ya even the odds. If you can.”

The cabinet in the room had the shelf of EMPs from earlier. Useful. On the bottom shelf there were a few new gadgets. Small, thick disk-shaped objects, about the size of a half-dollar with a button sunk in on one face. The button had an embossed smiley face. Each piece glowed bright white. A piece of paper, clearly torn from a notebook, sat underneath them with instructions.

“RADIO MIMIC,” it read, in scrawled, barely legible pencil, “Use to call off active alarms,” it continued underneath it in slightly less legible pen. Finally, at the bottom, in chicken-scratch cursive, it said, “-You’re welcome. SeanD”. At least I think that’s what it said. It was hard to read.

I was in the process of grabbing a handful when the first guard tumbled into the room. Before I had a chance to react, the snap-crackle-pop of an EMP grenade sounded, and the guy dropped hard. Must have been one of the ones I put there earlier. Dangerous, to leave those lying around.

Then an alarm triggered somewhere in the back of the column room, and three guards kicked in through the door to the exit. The pillars blocked their line of sight, but it was a tiny room. That wouldn’t last long. No more time to waste. The first guard came out from behind the pillar, swinging her pistol in a careful arc. I saw her before she saw me, and one EMP later, both she and the man behind her fell into neat pile. The third guy shouted, spotting me. He darted across the room, ducking skillfully under the arc of my next grenade, and took cover behind a shipping crate next to a pulsing red alarm panel. The alarm was in a corner, which meant I was in trouble. There was no way to really get the drop on him, now that he knew where I was.

I took off one of my boots.

I’d seen this on TV once.

I scooted around the pillar until I guessed I was directly in line with the man, albeit behind cover. Then, I flung my boot from behind cover at an angle, a quick burst of motion.

As soon as I let it go, I pushed against the pillar and ran like hell to where the man was crouched. He lost a critical second falling for my dumb shoe. Sometimes one second can make all the difference.

Sometimes.

He was fast. He adjusted fast. He was swinging back around to face me before I’d gotten very far. His first shot missed. I hit the shipping crate, vaulted over it, and slammed him into the ground. To his credit, he struggled for a moment. His second shot traced a line open across my cheek. My vision started blurring out and I, devoid of my usual precision, stuck his nose with an elbow strike. I followed it up with a hit to his solar plexus, and then fell onto the shipping crate, catching my breath and rubbing away the pain eating at my irises.

“Trying,” Sean Darcy joked snidely over the PA, “to get back in the medical bay, huh?”

The alarm panel flashed rapidly. I pushed myself up, stumbled over. Repeated does of this tranq stuff was probably more harmful than I initially thought. I cracked the front of the panel open, and suddenly it was like staring at alien writing and being asked to decode it. The wires crisscrossing over one another merged and split nonsensically. The nodes didn’t add up. Every time I started to follow one line, it looped back around itself, or ended up in a different place, or disappeared entirely. I fished a radio mimic out of my pocket instead.

 Pressing the button on the radio mimic did turn off the alarm. It also set off another one.

“And there’s the alarm again!”

Thanks. Couldn’t tell.

Somehow, over Darcy’s barely contained glee and the cacophony of the alarm, I heard the scuff of a shoe behind me. Her forceful kick to the side nearly bowled me over. She spun into another one, and I caught hold of her foot, twisted it, and knocked her on the ground. One more guy edged out of the door. No space to play nice anymore; the sporadic problems with focusing my eyes were back. I wrenched the woman’s ankle one more time. The resistance gave way as something snapped. I dropped her leg and dove behind the nearest column. The other guard was tearing across the room. I yanked out one EMP, flung it at him, and hit the deck.

I wish I could have seen it. The man gave one grunt and a “what the-”. Then the grenade detonated.

I didn’t bother to try and reset the next alarm manually, just used another radio mimic. They were a neat little thing to have.

“There you go!” Darcy pipped up. “Getting’ sick of hearin’ ‘em anyway.”

For once, I was in complete, wholehearted agreement. No more alarms triggered themselves. No more guards came flailing in. Now that the alarms were off, I could hear the quiet whimpering of the woman with the broken ankle.

“Thought they might have ya for a second – guess I was wrong,” Darcy admitted.

The woman had finally gotten herself into a sitting position, and was doing her best to create a makeshift splint out of her belt.

“Head on up and I’ll call someone in to clean up the course.”

She didn’t look at me as I swiped my boot off the ground, and inched past her towards the exit.

“And the bodies,” Darcy added as I gave her one last glance, then headed upstairs.

 

* * *

 

Darcy was in his chair, piecing together bits of his grenade when I made it up. Took me a few minutes. The stairs were hell.

He put a curious S shaped wire and an LED strip down when I entered, and stuck his hands behind his head.

“Pretty thorough!” he told me. “Made a real mess of things – in a good way.”

A broken nose, and broken ankle, electrocution – this was a _bad_ mess.

Darcy pulled out a manila envelope out from a desk drawer, and frisbee’d it at me. The words “LUNCH MONEY” were scribbled on the top in black Sharpie. It took more effort than I wanted to admit to myself to catch it. My eyes chose that moment to refocus themselves. Time to leave, before I did something stupid.

“See you in the field, Darcy,” I said, turning towards to the door.

“If you say so, Mikey,” he said.

As soon as I made it out, I tripped and nearly fell. _This was a bad idea_ , my eyes reminded me. I got all the way to one of the chairs in the now empty lounge before every fiber of every muscles in my legs also decided to join in the protest. Soaked in a numbing kind of pain like strings of pasta stuck in hot water. Fortunately, I’d put all the guards who hated me in the medical center, so it would probably be safe to sit for a minute. Maybe two.

A small nap.

Only for a minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 6.  
> merged day 7 here as well  
> //d159 edits live  
> //FT edits live


	5. Freedom of Information Act

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a Covert Training Op leads to some unfortunate info about everyone's favorite intelligence agency.

_There was a truck in the middle of a very large field_.

“Agent Thorton?”

 _I was supposed to be bringing it back somewhere. It needed to be shipped out tomorrow?_

“Thorton? Hey, wake up!”

 _It was full of disks? CDs? Critical CDS, blue and cracked. The –_

A pillow smacked into my face. My hand went for where I usually kept a pistol. I was in a lounge. I was in a lounge? There was no enemy, only a smallish beige pillow from one of the other lounge chairs.

“Are you awake now?” someone called from behind a locker. Sounded like Mina.

“Mmmmm,” I grumbled. My eyes were no longer made of pain, just of compacted sand and sawdust.

“Good.” Mina stepped out, and sat down on the chair adjacent to me. Then, for who knows why, she proceeded to dig around in the cushions.

“I wasn’t sure how you’d react,” she said, on the hunt. “Some people respond more…aggressively to be woken up.”

Mm.

She glanced over. I sighed and rubbed my eyes, and she smiled and fished a remote free and turned the TV on. CNN was running a special with a “military expert” who was dead-sure this latest Al-Samad attack was the opening act of World War III.

“The first day is always the hardest,” she offered. “Westridge likes to push people.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

She frowned briefly.

“You know, Agent Thorton, usually it’s much worse. You didn’t give Westridge much time to prepare.”

The Military Expert was cooling down. He allowed that perhaps a more measured response would be useful. The CNN anchor wasn’t having that.

“Then again, most of us were out of the medical bay before we started…those tranquilizers are very debilitating, aren’t they?”

 _Shit_. I still had to go get that file from the medical bay. How long was I out? Damn tranqs. My cheek still stung. Jacob. And then Yancy. I looked at my watch. 13:56.

Mina looked hurt all of a sudden. “Am I boring you, Agent Thorton?”

“No,” I said, making an effort to sit up. “Just a little disorientated.”

“That’s normal,” she responded, brightening up. She now had a topic to expound upon. “The lights here, the schedule we keep, and especially the way you’re brought in…it’s all designed to readjust your sense of time.”

She gestured at my watch. “They’ll reset your watch every time you come in. Why do you think we all bother watching the news? The factual reporting and level-headed commentary?”

The anchor had asked some pointed questions about the ability for Al-Samad to infiltrate Your Average American’s Life, and the Military Expert had begun blustering his way through a loud and passionate call for more military spending, except now he’d wandered into an argument about open-carry laws. The anchor began desperately trying to reign him in. Train wreck in motion.

“Entertainment?” I guessed.

The expert began pounding his fist on the newsdesk the moment I volunteered my opinion on the value of the news, and Mina cracked up.

“You would think,” she said through her laugh. “The main reason is the time, though. Usually, the news will give you the time in eastern standard. And while we’d all prefer Greenwich Median, Westridge won’t give us access to international news. It took a week of united opposition from both the agents and the guards just to keep the national news. He’s afraid we’ll figure out where the Greybox is.”

“Have you?”

“I wish. I imagine Parker knows. And the guards have a handle on the region, since they have to patrol outside, but they won’t say. Darcy has a grenade testing range outside, but I highly doubt he’s figured anything out.”

Well, so much for an easy answer.

“If I were you,” she recommended, “I’d reset your watch, and make your way to the interrogation room. You’ve completed all the tests, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, as I stood up. The nap had done good. I could only feel the remnants of aching when I stretched my arms. “Yeah, I made the rounds, met everyone.”

“You haven’t met everyone,” she told me. “Not yet. The Greybox a good deal bigger than this, and we’re running on a skeleton crew today. We had an…incident, a few Orientations ago, that convinced Westridge to keep people home when introducing a new element. But you are right in part. All the people you met today – we’re your team. Team 6, specifically. In your time here, it’s us you’ll be working with.”

“Great. So I have to deal with Darcy for the next few years?”

That _really_ got her laughing.

“One of the many things they don’t warn you about before signing up.”

The program on CNN came back on with a dramatic spinning graphic: National Threat Watch.

“All right, Agent Thorton,” she said, shifting her glance back and forth between me and the National Threat Watch. “I won’t keep you any longer. Good luck with Westridge.”

I’d probably need it by now.

“Thanks, Agent...?”

“Just Mina.”

“Okay, then. See you around, Mina.”

She smiled, already distracted by some outlandish claim about sugar on the TV.

 

* * *

 

“Are you waiting for clearance?” Parker asked impatiently.

The light over the door to the Lobby was a steady red. My trip to the Medical Center was supposed to be a _stealth_ op. Yes, I was waiting. And thinking. There had to be a keypad around here somewhere.

“Go ahead,” he urged. A second later, the light died.

The interrogation room was back behind me.

Eh.

It would still be there in a minute.

 _давай идём._

The Lobby had only one guard on patrol, on the bottom floor. It was upsettingly easy to avoid him. A good agent, on the top of their game? They’d wreck this place. Then again, I’d like to think I put a good deal of their better people of commission for the day.

Out of commission…meaning they’d need to recover…in the medical center.

Hm.

I didn’t think that one through.

I doubled back and knocked the ground floor guard out for good measure. I was beginning to foresee a hasty retreat from the Medical Center in my near future. No need for hostiles blocking the exit route.

 

* * *

 

 

I caught up to a patrol the second before he walked in front of the Medical Center’s enormous glass windows. If he fell forward he’d attract more attention; I hooked a leg around his shin and pivoted him facedown onto the floor. The guard squirmed, then started shouting. I flipped him over with one hand and smashed his glasses firmly on over his eyes with the other. I added controlled strike at his sternum and went for his tranq gun. While he flailed for breath, I got a dart in his thigh. He’d feel this fight for weeks. My mission had better be half a world away.

I crouched beside the still body of the guard, checking his breathing. There were no other bootsteps sounding off in the hall. For the moment, we were alone. I got the feeling I wasn’t going to be the only hire in the near future. Either they didn’t have enough capable guards within earshot, or the guards had wised up and were waited for me. A very, very, _very_ quick look through the glass windows proved the former to be true. There simply wasn’t anyone in the room.

The glass remained all over the floor. Small drops of blood leading away from the wreckage and a sharp stabbing pain from my feet reminded me I had better check myself for shards again. Later, though. I’d been fine all the way here and I’d be fine back. Shouldn’t press my luck with Yancy too far. One of these days, he was gonna kill me. I’d rather it not be on my very first day of work.

The folder was the only thing in any of the many desk drawers. The file itself was sealed with a glimmering, silvery tape. The front was stenciled with the word “JACOB”. Without a measuring tape, I couldn’t possibly be certain it was the _right_ one, but if Parker was gonna take me to task about it, he could go fuck himself.

 

* * *

 

 

What was the of having an expensive welcoming lobby in a secret, you-must-be-this-high-to-enter blacksite? No one was gonna see it. No one you needed to impress with a fancy lobby, at any rate. I jogged across relective marble that someone had to spend time polishing, regularly, even, when I ran straight into the sight line of a guard patrolling the lobby bottom floor. I almost fell over myself reversing. I plastered myself against the nearest wall. My memory caught up to me. The man had been facing the other direction. It couldn’t be the guy from earlier; he would have – should have – activated the alarms. So, he was someone new. An irrelevant, but potentially useful conclusion: someone would have brought the first guard to receive medical attention, so there was most definitely a medical center elsewhere in the Greybox. More relevant fact: this guard was alert, searching the lobby’s side rooms, but he wasn’t worried enough to set off the alarm.

He took his time coming out of the leftmost side room, shaking his head and checking his PDA. I shadowed his footsteps while he stared at the screen. Quietly, quietly… then he looked up, and I had to push my schedule forward a bit. I sprung forward and locked an elbow around his throat, holding it for the few seconds it took him to relax and drop his tranq gun. Then I let him go and snatched the gun from the ground. He was dropped on his knees, scrambling for air. I put a dart in his back. Memory loss, Mina had said. Should take care of a couple of seconds of memory, if in fact he’d had a chance to ID me.? I added a second dart, just in case more darts = more memory loss, and dropped his gun at the door to the lobby.

 

* * *

 

The loud sound of fingers tapping carried through Parker’s door.

“Did you do as I asked?” he began the moment I had it open even a hair.

“Got the data, no problem. Here.”

“Were you seen?” he asked. I suppose he didn’t trust me. Fair enough. My track record with the Greybox guards could be better.

“Not that I know of,” I answered as truthfully as I could. And it _was_ the truth. I had no idea if the last guy saw me, or would remember if he did.

Parker didn’t seem impressed.

“Yeah, well, that will have to be sufficient,” he said. He walked back over to the chair, and placed the file in the center of a careful stack of almost identical files. I could only tell Jacob from the other files because it was, of _course_ , 7 millimeters shorter.

“Now that you have this file – anything you can tell me about my real assignment? Not that this wasn’t fun, but…”

Parker settled himself down in his chair and activated his monitor. A series of formulas and graphs was replaced by a series of blacked out lines and scanned text. He pointed towards one line, as if I could see it from my spot across the room.

He spun back around, and looked at me with a blank expression.

“You’re going to the Middle East,” he said, “to recover stolen prototype missile technology.”

Well, fuck. The only thing involving missiles, the Middle East, and espionage right now was Flight 6133.

Yancy wasn’t lying. This _was_ a big mission.

Messing around the Greybox all day might have been a bad idea.

“Your probability of success,” he continued in the same even tone, “is in the lower 20th percentile.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. I could have heard him wrong. Hallucinations, weren’t those another one of the side effects of Yancy’s Magical Mystery Drug? “I’m going to the Middle East?”

Parker sighed, stuck his hand out, and removed my PDA from me.

I guess that was a yes, then. I’d wanted a real mission, time in the field, action. I suppose I was going to get it. Or die trying. Or just die. Lower 20th percentile?

Maybe I just didn’t understand how percentiles worked.

I did ace calc though.

“I’ve downloaded intel onto your PDA that should prove useful when you reach your destination.” Parker said, handing it over his shoulder without looking away from his screens.

Maybe extra intel would bump me up a few percentile points.

“Well, thanks – I appreciate it, Parker.”

“We are exchanging favors, Agent,” he chastised, emphasizing each word. “We’re even – and that’s an important lesson in our line of work.”

“So when am I shipping out?”

“After you finish your orientation with Westridge. It is customary for him to outline, in his slow and plodding way-” Parker said with a sudden venom, rotating in his chair to stare me down- “his expectations for you. Then he’ll send you to fetch, like a good dog.”

The ‘Something Between Parker and Yancy’ issue threatened to push the ‘Impending Missile Crisis’ issue out of my thoughts for a second. I let it.

“So you get to stay in the kennel, then?”

“Yes. An apt comparison, Agent. If I were you, I would relish my time on the outside for as long as possible. Was there anything else?” he asked, making no move to get back to his active monitor. I have to admit, I wasn’t looking forward to a suicide mission to the Middle East, and if Parker really wanted to talk, well…

“What do you actually _do_ here?”

He dug a little deeper into his chair. “My primary role is intelligence analysis, but at times, I serve as a handler during sensitive missions.”

“So you’ve been on a lot of Alpha Protocol Ops.”

“Key ones, yes. I was involved in the events leading up to your assignment, in fact.”

“How?”

“I took on the role of a contractor, an accountant. Money I one of the easiest ways to track events…it often leaves the best fingerprints.”

“So you’re a spy.”

“Mmm…” Parker seemed uncomfortable with the title. “I am an observer, I rarely take action. But the smallest event, if analyzed incorrectly or acted on improperly, could have great repercussions…and that’s where I come in. To interpret events.”

“Like butterfly wings sparking a tornado, that kind of thing?” I joked, forgetting for a minute who I was talking to.

“Spare me the butterfly cliché. Guerilla actions, nuclear test exposing a corrupt politician, a rise in grain prices, and yes. The downing of an airliner in the Middle East…”

He adjusted his glasses and looked at me intently, a combination of stern frustration and didactic passion.

 _“All_ of these things have the potential to create larger catastrophes.”

“Okay…” I said defensively. I knew what the job of an analyst was. You did thankless work looking at a hundred thousand tiny variables to make a decision of enormous consequences, only to see half the time agents in the field having to ignore your advice as a hundred thousand more variables beyond your control started wreaking havoc and mayhem. I’d rather be the one ignoring advice than the one giving it any day.

“Controlling the repercussions of these events – getting agents the information they need to put fires out before they rage out of control – _that_ is my job,” he said, rising back up to his didactic fevor.

It was the sound of a man who was going to be a backseat driver.

“So, when I’m in the field, my orders come from you, or another analyst – _my_ job is, what – to listen?” I said, poking at him for no good reason, if I was being truthful with myself.

“Yes. It’s a numbers game, but decisions must be made quickly. If the decisions are solely reactive or passive, then you operate at a disadvantage.”

“So sometimes you create events,” I prompted.

“For political equilibrium – yes, at times. At other times, to give America an economic advantage.”

Good to know. Not only was he a backstreet driver, he was one of those people.

“I thought we were mostly _mission_ -driven,” I said.

He looked taken aback, and adjusted his glasses again. “We are! But even you will see the effect that even seemingly minor interactions have on the structure of a mission. Carry the logic one step up, and it shouldn’t be hard for you to grasp.”

Sadly, I did grasp the concept. There were always multiple paths to a goal, and those who stood to benefit always pushed for the path that benefited themselves the most. Screw everyone else. I was getting a sense of déjà vu.

“Ever get much of a break?”

“The world is never asleep, and neither am I.”

“You know,” I started, thinking out loud, “I actually thought you were the janitor when I arrived.”

Scratched that. I wasn’t thinking out loud. No thinking person would have said that to the espionage director.

“That would either be an insult – or an excellent deduction.” He started scowling. “I’m guessing the former.”

“I…was actually just trying to make conversation-” and I seem to be stumbling my way through that goal- “but...why would that be an ‘excellent deduction?’”

“Because, Agent,” he said, face still scrunched up, “Alpha Protocol can only maintain plausible deniability as long as no one knows we exist. That means continually cleaning and scouring data, masking our communication lines, and protecting our global positioning.”

“I understand. That must be a full-time task – and an important one,” I said placatingly.

“Agreed,” he said, ceasing to frown. I think that’s what passes for a smile with Parker. “Even Westridge would say I hold the most important post in the facility. So, in short, yes. I clean up after others. And if necessary, I am the one tasked with shutting this program down.”

I paused. Maybe it was the way he said it. It sounded more ominous than it probably was.

“Shutting it down?”

“Turning off the lights, putting up the chairs, locking the door.” The frown was completely gone now.

“What does _that_ mean, exactly?”

“This place _cannot_ be found,” he said. “If Alpha Protocol is compromised, any evidence of the program must be deleted.”

He didn’t say anything else.

“But…” _Evidence of the program must be deleted._ Data, sure. But why would deleting data bother him?

“What happens to the…I mean, is there an escape route, or…”

He continued to look at me without saying anything.

“What happens?”

“What do you mean, Agent? Be specific, I dislike dancing around an issue if one exists.”

“What _happens_ to the _people_?”

“Expendable.”

“Are you serious?” I asked, as he returned to his monitor.

He also resumed his previous silence.

“You _are_ serious.”

He said nothing.

“You sound like you’ve done this before,” I guessed, in lieu of anything else to bring up. Make a mistake in the CIA and someone dies. Make a mistake here and everyone does. _Evidence of the program must be deleted._

“If I have, it’s classified.”

Then he bought this chair back around, looked me dead in the eye, and said coldly, “Or perhaps I’m joking.”

I was speechless for a moment.

He took advantage of my momentary lapse in ability to process information. “Are we done here, Agent? I think I’ve answered all your questions.”

“Some of them, yeah,” I said slowly. He brought up more questions than he answered. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to keep talking. “The others can wait.”

Parker gestured towards the door to the hallway with two raised eyebrows and his usual frown. He didn’t need to kick me out twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Days (ready for this?) 8, 9, 10, and 11. They all ended up working as a unit, so...plus, Parker talks a lot.  
> //d159 edits live  
> //FT edits live


	6. Executive Order 12333

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we face the boss of Orientation, keeper of missions, bane of agents, guardian of the cafeteria lunch schedule...the great and powerful Westridge.

The guard outside the interrogation room was sleeping, slouched in a chair, head leaning against the wall. A brand-new bruise crept across his face and ended underneath his sunglasses. Two bandages bisected the bruise.

“Good work,” I said to his prone form.

Not like I needed his permission to talk to Yancy, though.

 

* * *

 

Westridge was waiting, staring at the muted TVs. Alternating red and white light from the displayed diagnostics cast light across the room.

“You guys must have spent a fortune on TVs,” I said as I walked up.

He tossed the remote on the table, and turned around. “You all done?”

“You tell me.”

He smiled and tossed his hand to the side in an elaborate gesture of satisfaction. “Now you’re learnin’.”

“I have to admit,” he continued, “I was worried whether we’d be able to keep you here after you woke up in medical. You gave our staff a run for its money.”

“I gave it my best, and so did they.” _Presumably,_ they gave it their best. I gave them the benefit of the doubt for Yancy’s sake.

“Fair enough. I’ll be a good excuse to up the morning drills around here.”

Silver lining in the continuing cloud of offensives I’ve committed against my new coworkers: at least Yancy approved. He gestured back towards the screens, and an eye-level feed flipped from a static image of helicopter specs to a report.

“Looks like you did well on the tech portion of the test…very well. Past Darcy’s bitching, there’s some real compliments in here if you look at the numbers.”

There had _better_ be. I tried to read the report, but another report appeared, replacing any numerical compliments there might have been.

“Mina’s report on your weapon skill was-” I got ready to explain myself- “impressive. In fact, I think you out-performed many of the guards, and it’s your first day.”

“She’s a good teacher.” Let’s move past this report before Yancy gets a chance to look at it in any more detail.

“She is, and she has a good eye for potential. I’ll let her know your opinion.”

The slide switched again, and a familiar report showed up. Parker. How’d he have time to finish that?

“And here’s a surprise – a positive evaluation from Parker. On the numbers side as usual, but he actually took the time to write a sentence.”

“He did? Uh…” I started. I already know that stealth is my best skill, but… “What was the sentence?”

He looked back over his shoulder at the screen. “‘You may have been right about this one, Westridge.’ For Parker, that’s high praise. Assuming you don't let us down, Mike.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Nothing like a job well done.

“Looks like that’s it for the physical evaluation. Now for the hard part.” Yancy pulled a chair out from under the table and straddled it. _That_ was the _easy_ part? “Tell me why you’re here.”

_Because you kidnapped and drugged me_ , I managed not to say. “You ever had,” I started instead, “an intern position at a government agency?”  

“I have.”

“Need I say more?” I said. “All my exercise was from moving papers from desk to desk. I’m here to do work, not–” I made a point of looking briefly to the remaining chair under the desk– “sit back and manage it. I wanna be out where the action is. I wanna make a difference.”

“What makes you think you’re ready?” he challenged. “Because I’ll tell ya, we get a lot of recruits in here, and you’re not convincing me.”

“My opinion isn’t important. Yours is.” Fact was, I _was_ ready, or as ready as anyone could be for something like Alpha Protocol, and if he didn't know that, well, he wouldn’t have brought me here.

“Not out in the field,” he countered, raising an eyebrow, “and not when you’re dealing directly with others. Then _your_ opinion is all that counts.”

He let that sit for a while, inspecting me. I stayed standing.

Finally, he visibly refocused. “Beyond the guns, tech, and sneaking around in the dark, there’s one last part of this job that nobody else here seems to get.”

“I’m listening.”

“Good, because listening is a large part of it – the way you talk to people, your attitude. That’s what we’re going to discuss now.”

“I’m not sure I understand. Is there something wrong with how I deal with people?”

_Because if so, reminder, you’re the one who taught me._

“No. Believe it or not, you’re not here because you’re a people person–” I beg to differ– “you’re here because your psych profile says you’re skilled at manipulating others.”

“Was that a compliment?” I said, annoyed.

He made a non-committal head movement that was part nod, part shake.

“You’ll see,” he said. “The way you project yourself definitely affects what people think of you – and your reputation with ‘em.”

You don’t say? No one here knew whether they wanted to treat me like an unconvincing new recruit, or an actual asset.

“I’d rather skip the pep-talk and get started,” I told him. He only shrugged, and started getting up.

“Fair enough,” he said, and walked towards the door. “Meet me in the command center, and I can give you a proper mission briefing.”

“Good – cause I’m sick of this room.”

“Trust me, Mike, if it were up to me,” he said as he opened the door, “you’d never see this interrogation cell again.”

I looked over the polished and entirely dust-free screens – I’d hate to be an intern _here_ – one last time before I followed him out.

 

* * *

 

The command center. An industrial, spacious, server-strewn room with desks tucked here and there. There were more agents here in the command center than there had been in all of Orientation, and they all were in some kind of motion, passing files or swapping words or checking red flashing flatscreens up on exposed steel support columns. This was Yancy’s element; you could tell. He didn’t move though the space; the space moved around him. The careful steps of nearby agents, appearing random, came just close enough to pass news about some global development if necessary, but not close enough to infringe on his self-projected bubble. An elevated area in the front of the room was lined with metropolitan-industrial railing, held a low coffee table, a heck of a leather desk chair, and tactical view of six diagnostic televisions, all angled to the center of the platform. He ran a finger idly over the railing as we took the few side stairs up and made our way to the nexus. This was his zone, completely, and he, coming to a rest with one arm resting on the rails, not putting any weight on it, only an establishing gesture – he was well aware of it.

Me, meanwhile, I was being assessed out of the corner of everyone’s eye with dubious results.

Yancy looked briefly over his shoulder, and across the room an agent came to a poised halt. He made a kind of flicking motion with the hand resting on the rails, and she nodded, pressed a button on her PDA, and rejoined the humming activity. A second later, the television directly in front of us flickered to life, displaying a recording of who but Ali Shaheed. Beside his face were readouts and a video of what looked like a soldier, in a red hat.

“That’s Sheikh Ali Shaheed, the voice of Al-Samad,” I said, aware of the expectant way he was looking at me, and the fact that I wasn’t supposed to know where I was going yet. “They say he was responsible for shooting down that airliner in the Middle East.”

Westridge joined me in watching Shaheed’s silenced face contort around each angry word he spoke. “Yeah, he got his hands on some prototype Halbech technology – a missile with a multi-stage targeting system called ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. That airliner,” Westridge said very calmly, “was his first target.”

From what I knew about Halbech, they were a weapons engineering company that was relevant solely because one particular thing – their mastery over missile construction. Missiles were hard enough on their own to steal. Halbech was experimental; forget the internal security they'd have, DARPA and who knows who else would be all over them.

Something wasn’t right.

“Specs and shadiness of this whole thing aside, how did Shaheed get his hands on that missile?”

“Missiles.” He _finally_ sounded worried, even dropped his hand off the rail. “He’s got more. He stole them from Halbech, and we need them back before he gets any more trigger-happy. Then we want you to kill him.”

“You know where he is?”

“No. That’ll be part of your mission in the Middle East. Find the missiles, then find him and take him out.”

“You don’t want him taken alive?”

He almost laughed. Though it was only for a split-second, the activity in the room stalled, like a person who’d been about to take a step right before suddenly realizing there was a tack on the floor.

“If he cooperates, sure, bring him in!” he said with an open shrug.

In the background, the cadence of the exchanges between agents faltered as two file reading people sideswiped another. Things sped up, both agents trying to collect papers before someone saw something they shouldn’t.

“On the off-chance he tries to kill you, then put a bullet in his head.”

Easy as that, huh, Yancy? A third agent stepped in, handed off a paper that had flipped its way under his desk, got snapped at by both the awkward figures scrambling on the ground.

Well, I was already going to have to beat some odds to get close to Shaheed. Might as well bet on him coming back with me safe – and alive.

“I’ll put my years in charm school to use,” I said.

“All right, then,” he said, the endorsement skeptical. “Pack your gear – you’re heading to Saudi Arabia.”

“Not coming with me?” I asked, with a brief frown.

“I’ll be there in spirit. And on video and radio, when needed. Agent.” He dismissed me with a word, fixing his gaze on the first agent from the folder incident. The room struggled to regain its organic flow as he stalked over towards them.

The television started up another feed of Shaheed. Thick, squared black sunglasses – Shaheed’s signature. Intel had mixed reports on the subject, but the slurry of rumors and anecdotes suggested he was heterochromatic, and not keen on making that the selling point for his ideas.

Well.

I guess one way or another, I was going to find out.

“ _I’m coming for you, Shaheed,_ ” I thought at his erratically bobbing head.

And since I didn’t have much to pack, courtesy of Alpha Protocol’s very liberal Orientation process, he wouldn’t have long to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 12, 13, and 14.  
> //d159 edits live  
> //FT edits live
> 
> "Trust me, Mike, if it were up to me, you’d never see this interrogation cell again." Then, two seconds later, he realized, wait! It *was* up to him! A most happy moment for Westridge indeed.


	7. SAUDI ARABIA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mikey's very first Alpha Protocol op kicks off. Also in which he gets into various troubles befitting a newbie whose idea of stealth is 'walk right up to the front door'. Although, he's got style when it comes to explosives.

_\----------------------------_

_Now_

_4/24/2008_

_Interrogation Room A_

_\----------------------------_

_In the background, clips from news reports looped over and over._

_I was leaning over the table and I couldn’t stop myself. Maybe it was the red light from the dossier displays on the televisions. Leland was leaning forward too, one hand on lap, the other on his side. I wanted to shove the table into his yellow-clad chest. Full of himself. Thought he was smart. Thought I would let him get away with everything he had done._

_We were coming for him._

_“Care to explain how Halbech lost its missiles?” I demanded._

_He sighed. I sat. Theatrics, all of it acting._

_“Old news. An accounting error.”_

_Liar. Even now, even here, in the heart of the Greybox. He thought I didn’t know, still, somehow, hadn’t found out? Now that I was seated, he couldn’t see my hands clenching. Good. Theatrics, all of it. Had to be, needed it to be. I had a job to do._ _They were coming for him._

_“The missiles. You didn’t lose them, did you?”_

_He looked up, straight at me, and smiled. Mocking. This was a game to him._

_“Angry, Mr. Thorton?” Yes. But I was good at games. He’d see._

_“Because of what happened in Saudi Arabia?”_ _Leland added, in a stage whisper._

_Stay calm, stay in control. Not now, not yet._

_In the background, clips from news reports looped over and over…_

 

\----------------------------

Then

Saturday, 1/26/2008, 14:43

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Saudi Arabia

\----------------------------

“Mike, can you read me?” Yancy’s fuzzy form on the television asked. “I’m getting lots of interference.”

The safehouse was as beautiful. A fountain in the front room. Massive windows. Hardwood floor. Scrolled furniture everywhere and a gigantic grandfather clock.

Very pretty.

Very useless.

The damn TV took an hour to get working.

I hadn’t even _started_ on the clunky computer in the server room.

I took a couple steps back from the TV and prayed it would stay connected this time.

“I made it to Saudi Arabia, sir,” I said loudly. “I’m at the safehouse.”

“I guessed that much. See any shadowy agents in trench coats at the airport?”

What was this, the Cold War?

“No, sir, I don’t think so,” I reported.

He fixed me with a weary look.

“That was a _joke_ , Mike. But stay on your toes anyway. Anyway, finding Shaheed is your primary objective. Trouble is, we don’t know his location, but we have three leads.

“One: an arms dealer, Nasri, is believed to have sold the missiles to Shaheed, and he’s currently operating in Saudi Arabia. If you can intercept him, maybe he can tell you where Shaheed is – or guide you to the missiles.”

An arms dealer, huh?

“Do we have anything else on Nasri?” I asked.

“Nothing more than what’s in his dossier. If you can manage to make any contacts and find out more, we’d welcome it.”

“Consider it done,” I said, and gave him a mock salute.

He gave me a dead-eyed stare in return.

“Sorry, coach,” I said quickly, sticking my hands back in my pockets.

“Two,” he continued gruffly, “We tracked down the location of an airfield Shaheed used in the past – if you can sneak in and plant a listening device, we may be able to track flights Shaheed is using to move through Saudi Arabia.”

“And the third lead?”

“We’ve got the coordinates of an Al-Samad detention camp – also used as a stockpile for weapons.” He held a paper up. I couldn’t tell what it said; the screen was shit. Someone needed to get their money back.

“We suspect the missiles may be stored there,” he said.

“Suspect? Is there any way to be sure the missiles are there?” _Before_ I go charging into a detention camp, that is.

“Not at this time. The area is dug into the side of a canyon, and getting reliable satellite imagery – when sandstorms aren’t blowing – has been almost impossible. We want you to go in alone, recon the area, and shut down their radar and communications.”

Breaking _into_ prison? “Never a dull day for a field agent,” I said.

“Once that’s down, we can call in air support and hit the camp hard.”

“No pressure.”

“And _no_ backup. Get used to it, it’s the job.”

“Then the air support is…?”

He didn’t glare at me this time. He just ignored me.

“You check out your new home yet?” he asked. “It’s got some…perks you might be interested in.”

“Besides the fountain? There’s more to this place?”

That finally earned a smile from him. “You see the weapon’s locker?” he asked.

Hell yeah. A carved wood mechanics case, more pistols than I would ever need, a chill-inducing number of tranqs, grenades, knives, lockpicks, rifles…

One of the rifles, in fact, was currently serving as a tourniquet tie tightening a bundle of TV wires together.

“I did,” I told him.

“Thought that might hold your attention!”

“It did. Anything else?”

“A computer, with a hub connection so fast you’ll feel like you’re going back in time.”

The computer was slow. My dread was instant.

“What, back to the Stone Age? Please.”

“You can do dossier research,” Yancy continued, “encrypted emails, and, if need be…access some of the weapons dealers in the area. That’ll be done on your own dime, however.”

“I understand, sir. We wouldn't want Alpha Protocol tied to any weapons trafficking in the Middle East.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“How awkward would it be, though,” I wondered out loud, “if I ended up getting a weapon from the guy, what’s his name, Nasri.”

“It wouldn’t,” he said sternly. “So don’t. When you’re ready to head out, notify us.”

“All right. So…” I began.

The picture on the screen began blurring and stuttering badly. The background chatter of the Greybox started cutting in and out.

“Is that it-” I tried to ask, but the feed winked into blackness.

“Yancy?”

Nothing.

“Great.”

Off to a good start already. Good thing I wasn’t superstitious.

I went and unwound the rifle from the wires. In the end, it hadn’t helped much. Time to find this computer he was talking about.

No time like the present.

\------------------------

Sunday, 1/29/08, 15:22,

Abandoned City

Outside Zalim, Saudi Arabia

\------------------------

The wall was covered in half-finished wood and sheet metal scaffolds. Camouflaged ski-mask and sweatband wearing guards directed an array of weapons and dirty looks at me and my hellscape-surviving truck and my suit.

To be fair, I doubt they were expecting anybody to swing by.

“Careful, Mike.” Yancy said, on my earpiece. “Don’t play games with these guys.”

Such faith in me. I hadn’t planned on pissing off the first guards I met. The second ones, yeah, sure.

I shut off the truck and let it sit for a second. The guard on the top of the scaffolding was tense, fingers curled tightly around his assault rifle. Too wound up to be useful, and just wound up enough to be dangerous. Everyone else was alert and suspicious. Supposedly Nasri ran a tight ship. That could be used against him, though. After all, who wanted face the tight-ship consequences of shooting an important visitor?

The guard on the scaffolding kept a bead on me as I opened the car door. I did my best to keep an eye on him without actually meeting his gaze. No need to pose a challenge. I kept my stance open stance, showing them I had no weapons of my own. Not that they would see, at any rate. Tranq pistol in the gas can, light body armor under the suit.

The gate guard walked up to me slowly. The paranoid guy on the scaffolding watched us both.

“American,” the gate guard decided. Here I was, hadn’t even said a word. “Nasri said nothing about an American.”

Why doesn’t anyone ever mistake me for a British agent?

“Not looking to advertise my presence – only to do business,” I told him.

I could have been Australian, too.

“Business, eh?”

“Get focused, Michael,” Yancy said, ever alert.

I adopted a smile for the gate guard, the polite smile of someone with too much money to be inconvenienced like this.

“Check with Nasri if you don’t believe me,” I said dismissively, already moving back for my car with an air of assumption. “He’s waiting for me – and my down payment.”

Tell people what wanna to hear, and they’ll believe you. And everyone knows Americans love their weapons. 

Tell them what they wanna hear, and then give them a way to pass responsibility on to someone else. He could believe me or not – he kept firm hold on his pistol, not entirely sold – but now he had a way to make it someone else’s problem. After hours in the desert sun, in long-sleeved combat gear, who wants that kind of problem?

I made it back to the car, door open, I was getting in and he was still squinting at me. He was more well-disciplined than I’d hoped, but he’d give in. Even the paranoid man on the scaffolding had gotten tired of scoping me intensely, and had let his attention wander several times to the horizon already.

“Hnh,” he grumbled, then nodded grudgingly. “I call ahead – go on through.”

Bingo!

“Can’t believe you bluffed those guards,” Yancy complimented over the headpiece as the guards moved off towards the gate.

“Thou of little faith,” I told him, quietly, masking it as a cough as I nodded at the gate guards.

“Ye,” he said. “And Mike? Stop talking. You’ll get caught.”

 

* * *

 

Intel said the city had been abandoned ages ago. Intel was right. Wood and metal leaned against crumbling walls with no conceivable purpose. Ragged and completely sunbleached posters hung caught in the many barbed loops laying around. I’d made it into a back alley filled with destroyed crates and debris when a harsh old-school alarm bell went off in the distance.

“Looks like they figured out I was bluffing,” I commented.

“Nasri’s headquarters are in an old palace up the hill,” Yancy said. “That’s your target.”

Off to the right side of the alley, a ladder emerged from the inside of a building. Roof access, good. Less fortunate – the door to the building was locked, and even though it didn’t take long to get through the rusty lock, by the time I broke in I could hear footsteps.

The ladder was on the nice side of the room, framed by a beam of warm sunlight.

I was not on the nice side of the room. I was stuck behind the now open door while a guard sniffed around outside, boots making crunching noises whenever he stepped on some a piece of poster, or kicked rubble out of his path.

I knocked on the back of the door. It made a hollow, dull sound.

“Huh?” The guard said, finally taking note that the door was supposed to be closed. He burst through the door frame, firing shots wildly without looking. Amateur. It wouldn’t have been such a bad move with a clear head, but the guard didn’t have a clear head. When he inevitably had to reload, I slipped out from behind the crate. First, a chop at his shoulder to make him drop the gun. It was empty, but no need for him to use it as a bat. One follow-up to knock him off his balance, a strike to the chest, spin kick at his ankles now that he was distracted, and a boot to the sternum after he went down. Quick, elegant, and efficient. No time to waste, other guards would be–

Two shots spun over by head as instinct took over. I pushed myself against the wall, angled away from the door. _Son of a_ –. The new goon started shouting. When he saw the limp leg of his buddy sticking out into his field of vision, he lost his cool and came running in.

The first guard’s gun was at my feet. Use his momentum against him, I grabbed the gun and flung it towards t where his legs would be in just a second. The gun collided with his shins. He faltered for a second, stumbled, was going too fast to react properly. _Nailed it_. In the precious second when he was regaining his footing, I launched myself at his waist, bashed him against the door, and relived him of his weapon while. He, dazed, tried to clear his head. I grabbed his rifle. It was usually heavy. It made knocking him out easy.

Faint shouted orders echoing around, growing louder every second.

Roof it was, then.

There wasn’t much to the roof, though. The adjacent building had holes were blasted through the outside second story wall. You could see clean through. 5, maybe 6 feet away. Almost level with the roof.

I lined myself up with the hole in the building. I could make that. But _should_ I make that?

  * High ground is good.
  * Someone(s) were about to block off my exit.
  * It’d be cool.



I should go for it.

As with most of my impulse decisions, I regretted it. In the alleyway between the buildings, two of Nasri’s men were investigating. Trigger-happy idiots. They started shooting the moment they caught sight of my shadow. One started assaulting to local infrastructure with grenades. The other started running. I ran down the stairs and then right back up them as he screeched to a halt in front of a long bank of windows on the first floor.

He immediately began started pumping shots into the glass. The guy with the grenades keep going, one bouncing off the edge of the hole in the wall and falling back down before detonating.

Dust clouds flew out everywhere.

Okay. I could target the back of the Grenadier if I leaned out carefully. I needed to act quickly, though. Glassbuster was going to get brave and advance into the building at some point.

Another grenade came sailing up through the heavy dust. It would miss, the arc was all wrong, but it jolted my heart rate all the same. I traced back to where the throw had come from. The dust would shift in a moment. It thinned, and thinned, and then there was the outline of hair and a head.

The kickback with the tranq pistol was still horrible, but I was beginning to get used to it. He dropped. The shots from the front of the building had stopped. I tiptoed back down the stairs, looked out…

Glassbuster was fiddling with his assault rifle, a jam, looked like. I ducked down and darted across the room to a small stack of crates. They weren’t good for any significant cover, but Glassbuster had made the mistake of not paying attention to me in a fight. All I had to do was wait until he decided to try coming inside. A moment later, his shadow spilled over the floor. I waited a second for him to start shooting at the wall again, then shifted out to the side and put two darts in his chest. He dropped his gun, and his body followed suit.

 

The rest of the city was deserted. One scuffle with the guards, and suddenly, everyone was gone. It was either that, or they had all withdrawn to one convenient and easy to defend point.

It was probably the latter. It was _always_ the latter.

I approached another right turn corner, jogging now, when I heard chatter. Voices, multiple. Bootsteps, also multiple.

“Something is wrong with them,” one voice called out in Arabic. The voice sounded as if it was walking away, so I chanced a glance. I’d reached a large plaza covered in boxes and crates. Several guards patrolled; a couple were moving boxes around.

“You know that one convenient and easy to defend point I was worried about?” I told Yancy very, _very_ quietly.

“Look for alternate ways in,” he suggested. “No need to risk a direct confrontation.”

On this end of the alley was a boarded-up door. On the other side, a locked door at the end of a staircase. That would require crossing the tail end of the plaza. Not ideal.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” I told him. There weren’t any good footholds on the building, so climbing to the roof was out of the question. Direct confrontation, on the other hand. They had the numbers, but I had surprise and a clear route for strategic retreats. I could move faster by myself than they could in a group. I could draw them out, worse comes to worse, and pick them off one by one.

Footsteps scuffled again around the corner, as someone reproached. I dropped into a crouch, made my way to the corner, and got ready.

“Americans,” the voice muttered, as his footsteps stopped.

_Americans indeed_ , I thought, swung out, and shot him.

 

Everyone reacted at once. Across the plaza, through a doorway, a guard scrambled out of his chair, dropping a newspaper and hitting the alarm. A sniper on the roof began methodically sweeping back and forth. A pistol materialized in the grip of a guard I’d failed to notice, who had been just outside of my field of view, beside the first target. He had the gun, but instead of using it he rolled the first target over, checking breathing and pulse. I didn’t give him a chance to regret it. He collapsed on top of the first guy, dart stuck deep in his side.

Where was Sniper? The roof of the farthest building where he had been was clear of anything but rubble and dangling wires.

He hadn’t moved, had he?

The corner above my head imploded into dust. _Fuck_. Grit clouded my eyes, not good.

I backpedaled, blinking, thankful for the wind or sun or whatever it was that shifted Sniper’s shot above his mark. Thankful that I heard the familiar clank-roll-beep of a grenade and had a chance to roll away and hit the ground before it detonated in a sudden blazing cloud.

For all I knew, the sniper was still shooting. My ears were ringing. I kept low as I crept back up to the corner. Bits of plaster and wood were scattered in between the corner and the plaza where the sni– there. There he was. His head showed over a crate in the farthest corner of the plaza. He’d jumped down. Too far for a tranq dart. Regular bullets for the sniper.

I grabbed a chunk of plaster from the ground and tossed it across the square. He looked over, only the slightest mistake, and my shot caught him dead in the center of his forehead. No one came to check _his_ pulse and breathing.

One more guard left. He was stationed near the alarm, behind the doorway. When Sniper fell backwards, he swung part of the way out, firing. The problem with that strategy, as his friend had found out earlier, is that as soon as you need to reload, I get to advance. Not only that, he took so long fumbling with his weapon, I had a moment to switch out for tranqs again.

Actually, that was good news for him. It meant that the next time he stuck his head out, the shot that reached him only knocked him out.

All done.

I ran over to where he had been guarding the alarm with his life and started picking open the unit. The thing about these units is-

searing line of s _hhhiiiiiiioouuuchouchouch_ burrowing across the side of my shoulder and-

then hit the sound of the shots, and it made sense, my right arm spasming and twitching, it -I?- dropped the alarm box – _god-fucking_ - _damn that hurts_ – the alarm somehow off, where the hell was my pistol?

Focus. Some asshole just _shot_ me.

“Mike?” Yancy asked, calmly.

More shots through the gaping holes in the building, get to cover, felt like a hundred migraine headaches at once.

Focus, Michael. He was coming for the door.

_Shit. I need my right arm to shoot._

A second later someone blasted bullets across the doorframe. I fired from cover, blind, with my left arm. It could have been worse. Nothing was broken. Deal with it. Focus. I swapped my pistol over to my right hand, started shooting back, shadowing his path. My aim was entirely off, wobbling like crazy but it forced him away from the door and back behind some crates. I cut an arc through the crate, blowing bits of wood all over the place. The recoil was light but I could feel every ounce of pressure right now. He jumped up to toss a grenade, and I aimed as best I could and fired.

More bullets cut into the building, higher up than before. Another sniper? No more shots from behind the crates, or grenades. Maybe I’d tagged him. If it _was_ a sniper I’d need my rifle – oh, god, the _recoil_. Nothing for it. I holstered my pistol, unhooked my AR-21, and ducked out quickly. Yep, sniper. Gotta be fast about this. I steeled myself, and brought the stock up to my aching shoulder.

My aim was off, it got worse every time I fired. After a few seconds, though, the pain settled into icy numbness and I landed a burst in the sniper’s abdomen. He stumbled his way off the roof head first, and silence settled.

I dropped my gun, not that I could have held on to it for another second. My fingers were pins-and-needles nonresponsive. My jacket was ripped straight through to the armor underneath. There was a long, smoldering gouge across the side my shoulder pad. The bloody sleeve underneath was ripped apart. Slick fibers dotted the ragged line in the side of my shoulder. I poked it gently, felt nothing.

Not good. But it didn’t look too deep. I couldn’t see bone, at any rate.

There was a first aid kit inside the alarm building. There’d be something to patch it up, maybe something to make sure it stayed numb enough to ignore, for now.

Nasri was the priority. And over the roofs of this square, the top of his palace was visible. Not far now. I flexed my fingers again. I could make it. This was my first mission. I _would_ make it.

 

* * *

 

Five guys stood between me, and the green-tiled arches of the palace.

They milled around an open clearing, where trucks were parked in front of various stacks of shipping crates and containers. In the middle was a makeshift break tent and an alarm station, as well a lightly armored guard. He barked out orders to the rest of them, mostly variations on how crucially important it was to hurry and unload boxes.

I, meanwhile, took a moment to watch it all from high up on a rooftop tower. _Very_ high. I’d climbed some eight flights of rickety, falling apart stairs to reach the top. Given that I’d need my AR-21 for this, I wasn’t I eager to start.

Down in the clearing and diagonally across from me, a tall guy walked around in front of a dark archway on wooden scaffolding. He looked down the barrel of his rifle at _everything_ , and every few seconds he would drop to one knee and scan the nearest rooftop. I’d need a scope to be sure…but he looked a lot like the paranoid gate guard. Imagine how _that_ conversation must have gone.

He spun around, scanning my rooftop now and forcing me to duck down suddenly.

I eyed him through my rifle scope. Yep, it was the gate guard.

All right, focus.

Five targets. One on the scaffolding, guarding a small entrance archway, armed with a rifle.  He was probably the biggest threat, was in the best place to do damage or alert any units inside. One near the alarm under cover, could take him out with my scavenged grenades, but that’s not a guarantee and I’d lose the element of surprise without gaining anything. Two in front of the palace gate, walking in and out of my field of vision. And one to the right side of the plaza, unloading a truck, directly in front of me. I had plenty of cover, but no retreat plan except a ladder heading to the plaza, or back down the stairs.

Okay, then. Had to take the paranoid gate guard on the scaffolding first. Then in order from closest to farthest, ideally.

The man on the scaffolding had reached the end of his loop and was starting his return trip, facing me but not seeing me yet. In the square, the boss shouted orders out. One guy dropped a box and started swearing. A couple of birds even squawked from the square’s dying palm tree, but mostly, the heat swallowed everything, made the noises soft by the time they reached me.

There isn’t enough heat in Saudi Arabia to make a rifle sound soft, though, and the man on the scaffolding went out with bang.

Then the boss.

It only took two. Then the rest caught on and started ducking behind cover, started scanning entrances and exits, looking up and rooftops and windows.

One took cover behind a truck, another behind a pillar. Both looking off towards the gate and the body on the scaffolding. They were assuming I was over there, assuming they were covered, when really they left themselves wide open. Number Three: headshot. Number Four: messy collection of shots to the chest.

Number Five had found his way up the scaffolding while I was busy, was on one knee on the bloody wooden boards, rifle at the ready, glinting in the sun.

Which meant the sun was in his eyes. I swung my rifle around towards him and didn’t even have to duck when his shots went wide. Mine didn’t.

 

I made my way up the scaffolding, heading to the now unguarded entrance.

I had a job to do.

“Found a way into the palace,” I reported. The arched doorway opened onto upper ledge, boxes and shelves making convenient staircases down to the main hallway.

“Good. Going to be hot in there – careful, Mike.”

I climbed down to the darkened main room. No shit, it was going to be hot. But I guess it’s the thought that counts.

 

* * *

 

The inside of the palace existed in its own universe. Nasri had a…well, I wasn’t quite sure what it was. A courtyard that was part tank parking lot, part artillery storage, all bad news for me and crawling with guns. Impressive as hell, though. I radioed in detail from the shadows of a crumbling pillar, a line of boxes separating me from the center of the courtyard and the prying sightlines of Nasri’s people.

“Nice collection,” I finished. Five or six people, couldn’t tell. Decent cover. Too many explosives in the room. “Wonder if any of it works.”

“See if there’s something you can use.”

You know, the last time I didn't follow Yancy's advice, I got a shot to the shoulder. And here he is now, giving me the go ahead to steal one of Nasri’s fancy guns. I should listen to him.

Where to start? Three bullets flashed past my side. Wait. Up on a stack of wooden boxes, right to the right of the pillar, only some 20 meters away, a man was pointing a rifle at my head. I dropped. He shot. The pillar crumbled a little more.

Two grenades rolled up behind me. Grenades behind, and a sniper in front. Up and over the boxes, into the courtyard, then. And then everyone was shooting while I was ducking and dodging, sliding behind several crates of AK-47 lookalikes and trying to breathe, another grenade landing, beeping, to my right. I took off and scrambled behind a support column on the left side of the room. The grenade detonated in a clatter as presumably AKs went everywhere.

“The exit’s in the corner, opposite the entrance.” Westridge said faintly. I couldn’t hear him very well over the shooting. Rounds blew past the column and destroyed tiles on the walls. “Try to get to it–” _Another_ grenade bounced over, accompanied by a hail of shots on both side of the column. I reached down, scooped it up, flung it back as fast as I could manage, felt the heat wave hit nearly as soon as it left my fingers– “ _without_ getting killed.” No more bullets to the left of me. Maybe I hit something.

I yanked my rifle off my back, swapped hands, took a deep breath and leaned out from the left. Four guys standing. I started shooting, fast and not very discriminately. One guy toppled over, grenade in hand. The man beside him picked it up, tried to do the same thing I had, but he was too slow. It went off and he went down flaming and screaming.

Two guys left. The very first shooter, still on top of his crate, was shooting purposefully at my right, at the column. Trying to herd me into the path of the last guy? The last guy had good cover, was behind several long metal cases. They were short cases, though. I feigned like I was going to go left, like the guy on the crate wanted, then I ran forward, hit the metal cases, and started shooting over them. The man was pointing his barrel where I was supposed to have been. He didn’t have time to readjust. One left. _Think_. Use my surroundings. What was between me and the guy on the crates, where was cover? Looking up was a bad idea. This guy was fully in control of himself, not littering the air with bullets, but taking measured, constant shots towards the top of the metal cases. If I was fast, maybe I could…hm. There was something…ah yes. I fi recalled correctly, there were several rusted fuel barrels in the corner. Might be old, full of fumes. Good explosives. Good distraction..

I lay down, inching towards the edge of the metal cases on my elbows, drug supressed twinges from my shoulder reminding me that there would be hell to pay for this tomorrow. But I couldn’t let him see this coming. The shots continued overhead, as I angled my rifle out, scanned for the barrels. There they were – right beside the crates, no less. I aimed the Hamilton best I could from my position, and pulled the trigger, letting it go as soon as a huge flash-pop explosion destroyed my vision and what was left of my hearing.

I got up slowly.

The room was a wreck, several charred and sticky bodies, dozens of AKs scattered among burning boxes, an upturned missile launcher – how did _that_ happen?

One last thing, then.

I was given an order.

And there was still one upright missile launcher.

And, well, the way this courtyard looked…and the surrounding city…and I have _never_ gotten to shoot anything that big. It was an _order_ , after all. Find something I could use. I could use that.

The missile launcher codes were laughably easy to get past. Though the targeting program was complicated enough to make up for it, and was in technical Russian. Anyway, the missile launcher was already pointed at the palace. Better not mess with anything.

I listened as carefully as I could to the radio. Nope, no chatter, no buzz. Nothing from mission control.

The proverbial red button was, in fact, large and green.

_Click._

The noise from the launch must have been tremendous. The vibrations shook the ground and the entire console. I could feel the rumbling in every bone. It set my teeth on edge. The missile launched itself, streaking fire and smoke, and collided with a support pillar in an explosion that for a brief moment outshone the sun. The explosion blew the tremors of the launch out of the water. Stone and tile shot out everywhere, and I had to shield my eyes when the cloud of smaller debris and dust hit. I didn't notice that one chunk of stone, as large as my head, had embedded itself in the console until the air cleared.

The deafening quality of the detonation probably first caught Yancy’s attention, though, my laughter after I discovered the rock couldn’t have helped keep me incognito.

“mike!” he shouted, presumably. I had to shut up and jam my earpiece closer to make out anything. “what the hell was that!?”

**“I…”** Oh boy. **“UH…”** The need to shout to hear myself was hard to ignore. As was the instinct to lie about it. **“I…FIRED A MISSILE? AT THE PALACE.”**

Icy silence. Or, he said something I didn’t hear.

I’m going to go with the former.

I patted the missile launcher, and sighed. If I didn’t get to Nasri soon, Yancy might just decide to leave me in Saudi Arabia.

 

* * *

 

Nasri was waiting in the back of his compound, in a small stone room that was completely mismatched from the rest of the place. for the liberal sprinkling of disassembled guns scattered over everything, it looked like a metropolitan office, complete with sleek modern laptop.

I looked him over, and he I. He had a shallow scar –more of a crease than anything– running down his right side of his face. It was bisected by a dull milky eye. He stood straight up and clasped his hands behind his back. He had a smattering of honors, and wore a red beret. I can only imagine what he thought of me.

“Mike, have you spotted Nasri?” Yancy asked.

“He’s right here,” I said out loud, injecting bored indifference into my tone. Let’s see if I can unnerve Nasri. “He’s got nowhere to run, this should be quick – gimme a sec.” I didn’t let my eyes leave his once. He narrowed his own and maintained our staring contest, but he also shifted a little, dropping into a more defensive stance.

“You – who are you?” he demanded, a manufactured tone of command, neither that nor his rough accent capable of hiding the tremor in his voice. Good. Now that I had control of the situation…

“Omar Mohammad bin Nasri, by the order of the United States government-” He took a step back, eyes darting over to where a pistol holster hung off his chair, so I took the opportunity to pull out my own and level it at his forehead- “I’m placing you under arrest.”

He threw up his hands and froze. He must not get threatened often. “Arrest?!” He must not get threatened _at all_. He sounded legitimately terrified. “For what? There’s no crime here, nothing involving United States!”

“You are in possession of illegal shoulder-mounted munitions. We’d rather you not sell them on the black market.”

“The missiles?” Confusion, and then bitterness, took the edge off the fear in his tone. “You are too late. Already gone, sold -  you cause all this trouble for nothing-”

“Sold? To who?” I cut him before he could get off topic.

“I take their cash, not their names.” Now he was all bitterness, even some anger. “You come a few days ago, maybe you could have killed them instead of my men, eh?”

“Mike,” Yancy chimed in, “this is bad news – if he’s telling the truth.”

If. If he was…but there was nothing I could have done anyway. A few days ago, I’d just gotten into Alpha Protocol, I didn’t even _know_ about this op. I could have been out celebrating right when the missiles were changing hands.

“What do you do now, eh? Kill me?” Nasri spat out the words, but he kept his hands up. I realized –too late– that there was probably blood up and down my uniform and neck from my shoulder, not to mention a good amount of dirt and debris and plaster all over my everything else. If he was frightened, it might well be because I looked frightening. And he probably didn't even know about the five guys from the courtyard, or the ones in the missile launcher room. “That won’t get your missiles back.”

“Mike, we need to know where those missiles went,” Yancy added, suggesting something…what?

“If we let him go, he could lead us to the people he sold the missiles to.” I wondered, keeping watch on Nasri even as I pretended to let my eyes wander. He stiffened, face scrunching. No, I doubted he would lead us to them. “Or they might come after him. Either way, we win.”

“But if he can't lead us to the buyers,” Yancy said, trying to help, I suppose, but not really catching on to what I was doing, “then we’ve let a killer go, and more people will die. Remember that rocket attack in Eur-”

“Money. Guns. Yours.” Nasri pleaded. “If you let me go.”

Again with the ifs.

The missiles were gone now. Nothing I could do to change that. Plus, this was just one of the three leads I had to chase down here. I would have other, better chances to figure something out, hopefully. Hopefully.

“No,” I told him, watched his shoulders slouch, “We’re taking you into custody. A copter will be here to pick you up – and your munitions.” And me. Like hell I’m driving back right now.

“What?!” Gotta hand it to him, he kept those arms in the air. “Look, I’ll pay you, you don’t hear me, I said…I said I-”

“Yancy,” I said over Nasri’s devolving chatter, “One for delivery.”

“On their way, Mike.”

Nasri started swearing about my family in Arabic.

“Can’t risk the consequences of letting him go,” I told Yancy. “We can find the missiles some other way.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Search the room, see what you can find.”

I’d get on it as soon as I got Nasri tied or taped to something.

“Come on,” I instructed him in Arabic, with my most perfect accent, gesturing to his chair and watching as his eyes widened slightly and his cursing stopped mid-sentence. That’s right, buddy.

Overall, not too bad for a first mission.

I think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live


	8. Travel Log: Bug Al-Samad Airport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RECORD 168.19/6.12-6.10 and FILE 168- B 22, recovered from LOCATION 12

\------------------------

1/30

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Saudi Arabia

\------------------------

Every part of me hurt, no exception. My shoulder, my ears, hell – my eyes hadn’t seemed to recover from the one-two punch of tranqs and EMPS going off in my face.

Mina was talking quietly, thankfully, but the TV was making a low-pitched EE noise that felt like it was pipercing my corneas.

“Mike,” she said. “Congratulations on bringing in Nasri. They’re interrogating him now.”

The headache would subside with sleep. The shoulder, on the other hand…a surface wound, but goddamn did it hurt.

“Thanks for the update,” I said. “Anything on Shaheed?”

“No.” _Shit._ “We’ve got a lot of information on arms trafficking in the region – we should be able to shut down a lot of pipelines before people get hurt. But nothing on Shaheed.”

“Dammit, I thought for sure…” I sighed. “Maybe bringing him in was a waste of time.”

“I don’t think so, Mike.” Mina said, shaking her head and smiling reassuringly. “You made the right call. Anything come up you need my help with?”

I pulled my gaze from the light switch very to her questioning stare.

Yeah. Anything but me, right now.

“You been with Alpha Protocol a while?”

She smiled and straightened up.

“Not as long as Westridge – and not nearly as long as Parker. This assignment with Shaheed is probably the biggest one I’ve been involved with.”

She was new, too?

“What other assignments have you been on?” I asked.

“I went undercover with Parker in Milan as a contractor for Halbech,” she explained. “It’s how we found out the missiles were gone in the first place – although it was too late to stop Shaheed. The incident with the airliner…”

She glanced away, voice trailing off. I knew why. I didn’t blame her. I saw one guy on TV who didn’t know his daughter was dead until he got ambushed by a reporter. I knew _he’d_ blame her, and I knew she knew it as well. She shouldn’t put that on herself, but it was so easy.

“We’ll catch him this time,” I promised her. “He won’t get another chance.”

_Chance of success in the 20 th percentile. _I pushed the thought away. Pressure is one thing. Undue pessimism is another.

“I hope so,” Mina looked at me, and tried to refocus her smile. “I feel like if we’d been a little quicker with analyzing the data-”

There it was. _If only we’d been faster._ I cut her off. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. What’s done is done, let’s focus on the next step.”

“You’re right,” she said. “You’re right. We’re closing in on him and it shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Still, with Alpha Protocol,” I said, before she could let the guilt retake her. “What I don’t understand is why the United States would want to keep this operation secret. Don’t they _want_ Shaheed captured?”

“I think it’s the missiles that are the problem,” she said. “Halbech’s a substantial government contractor. The fact that the missiles were involved…complicates things.”

“‘Complicates’ things? As in…they’re a potential embarrassment to Halbech?”

“I think that’s a big part of it. US weapons used to kill US citizens? Wouldn’t look good on a front page, even if the missiles were stolen.”

Then again, Shaheed’s capture was big news on its own. It was a perfect follow-up story to Flight 6133. The media would love it. The missiles didn’t need to be mentioned. In fact, Shaheed was probably a bigger media risk free than he would be in the hands of the US government. Something didn’t add up.

“Alpha Protocol does a lot of operations like this,” Mina continued. “I don’t know all of them…or all the names this program has had…it carries out missions without the knowledge of other U.S. agencies.”

 “Like what? The CIA?”

“The CIA, the NSA… most congressmen don’t even have a clue this program exists.” No shocker there. What most congresspeople knew could fit in my hat. The NSA, though… “It’s designed to prevent red tape. And if it’s found out, it just gets buried and renamed.”

“Renamed? To Beta or Gamma Protocol?”

“No clue,” she said seriously. “Parker probably does, he’s been here the longest. Whenever it’s in danger of being exposed, it closes shop – and a new one opens up.”

_Evidence of the program must be eliminated._

“Interesting. I guess that’s good to know. Wonder if I’d get a new name if Alpha Protocol shut down.” I loved my name, but a new ID was preferable to a bullet in the back of the skull.

“I don’t know,” she said reflectively. “We might get new names, new identities…or fired.”

_Evidence of the program must be eliminated._ I could have said something, figured out if she was being metaphorical when she suggested we’d get fired. I didn’t. If she wasn’t, why bring it up? If she was, again, why mention it? We were alive today, and we had a job to do. A damn important one, at that.

“Can you tell me anything about Shaheed?”

She shook her head, ponytail flipping side to side. “Not much more than you’d find in his dossier. His personal fortune doubled in one year when gas was $4.00 a gallon. And he likes feeling…safe, when he travels.”

“What do you mean, ‘safe?’”

“While Al-Samad is mostly untrained civilians using cold war guns, his personal bodyguards are well-trained. And judging from the missiles used on the airliner…let’s just say he makes sure they have cutting edge tech.”

You might think this is the kind of information they’d give an agent before he heads off with a 20th percentile success rate, but you would be mistaken. Fortunately, I’m a good agent, and I have a knack for getting intel.

“Can you tell me anything about my mission here in Saudi?” I asked.

She shook her head, earrings bobbing. “Probably nothing Westridge hasn’t explained already. If you infiltrate the airfield Shaheed uses, I may have more practical advice.”

“Why is that?”

“I’ll be your handler for that mission.” She paused. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle. I know it’s your first time infiltrating an airfield.”

“As long as you’re backing me up, I think I’ll be in good hands.”

“That’s…very optimistic of you, Agent Thorton.” She paused again, quicker this time, then smiled softly. “But I appreciate the trust.”

There was another thing that was bothering me. Why me? I mean, if you thought I’d never, say, infiltrated an airfield, why send me off on this big, bad op?

“This seems like a big assignment for a new hire.” An understatement, in fact. “There must have been other candidates.”

“There _were_ other candidates,” she said, nodding. “including Darcy. But the recommendation was based on Parker, Westridge, and me. Although when I made my recommendation, it wasn’t about Shaheed, it was about the larger mission.”

“So why me?”

“Because I think when given a choice, you’re going to choose the people of a country over the heads of state. And that’s not a choice many people here would make in the same circumstances, especially Darcy.”

“Really?” I asked. She didn’t know him very well, I suppose. He’d always seemed to me like more the kind of person to choose the people just to spite the heads of state. Especially given how close his dad was getting to _becoming_ a head of state.

“To be fair to Darcy,” Mina continued magnanimously, “he had family issues that prevent him from going – notably his father. According to _your_ dossier,” she said, raising an eyebrow pointedly, “your family isn’t an issue.”

“Is that all I am to you?” I said, calmly. “A dossier?”

I didn’t care what she did or didn’t know about my uncle. My parents, on the other hand, would have shown up as cancer and a car wreck, which, from the judgmental edge in her voice, was nothing like what she pictured. Too many agents with a history of estrangement, or alienation, or whatever.

“Until you arrived at Alpha Protocol,” she said, no trace of an apology or even slight embarrassment in her tone, “you were. Not anymore. I think you’re someone who does what’s right. And that’s what I’m counting on.”

I’d gotten past my parent’s deaths – it’d happened years ago – but that didn’t mean I appreciated the presumption.

“That’s all I need. Thanks, Mina.”

If she detected the false sincerity, she let it slide. “You got it. Call me if you need anything else.”

She reached out towards the camera and cut the feed off quickly. The sound of the fountain bubbling filled the room, injecting tranquility into the orange, sunny, afternoon. I sighed. There was still a good half day left, and I needed to get to work researching the dossiers and the layout of the airfield.

And I really needed to get a copy of my own dossier. But not from Mina.

 

_PERSONAL LOG – 1/31_

_Yancy sent me some fifteen thousand dollars today, in direct violation of security protocols, no less. I told him he was getting soft. He said that because I caught Nasri, Alpha Protocol’s gotten a bigger budget, and he was in a good mood, so don’t push it. A thought - who funds us, especially if no one knows who we are? Mina sent me an apology email for poking at my parents. Well…it wasn’t_ quite _an apology. It was apologetic. She says after a month or two here, you lose your good graces. I think the Greybox crew just doesn’t get out much. Sucks to be them._

_I spent most the day figuring out how the hell I was going to break into the airfield. At least it wasn’t a main airfield, or anything. It’s not even in the city, slightly outside it. I think I might have to go in on foot. The layout…I can’t find very good intel on how things are set up. I need to get someone to get me better satellite imagery. The airfield is broken down, dusty, more of an overhyped parking lot for trucks than anything else, and set in between several cliffs._

_Darcy’s elected himself head of the welcoming committee. No shock there. Videoed in earlier today to start introducing me to the rest of the agency, now that most of them are back. Turns out, two years ago they recruited a guy named Philip, who also woke up too early, but since they didn’t have anyone on a PDA for him, he ended up killing some guards, paralyzing an agent, and blasting a hole in the base. Whoops. So now they send most everyone home. It takes a few days to get everything back to normal, which…why do Orientation during a crisis, when you need all hands on deck? Why not send one of the established agents on this Op? Why me?_

_Anyway, Sean introduced me to Philip today. He’s very quiet, very small, and his eyes smile when he frowns, which is often. He creeps me out. Sean says he’s ‘actually pretty stable’. I don't find that nearly as reassuring as Sean seems to think it should be.  
_

_PERSONAL LOG - 2/01_

_Happy February. I got the official report on the Nasri op from Mina. I’m supposed to be commended for gathering important info on Nasri’s movements. All I did was snatch the important papers from his desk, also known as doing my job, but I’ll take it. It’s better than getting reprimanded for firing a missile at the palace. My ears ring every time I think about it._

_I’m glad I’m a fast reader. I’m going to have to spend most the day tomorrow on dossiers. I’d planned to do it this evening, but then Darcy happened. This insistent focus he's got serves him well in the field, but he’s_ not _in the field, so today I got ambushed by some half a dozen agents on video chat. New members are rarer than I thought. I’m like a cigarette in prison. There was Clara, who I already knew, and Evan, who I met way back at the bar. The whole debonair villain air was gone. In fact, he was wearing large plaid pajamas. He apologized for drugging me. He seems decent. Then there was a nervous small guy, who Sean later told me was a Russian assassin, there was a polite Indian woman who did not seem to want to be there very much at all, and the plainest looking man I have ever seen, Greg Fox. I didn’t realize he speaking entirely in Arabic for a good hour until Evan, who doesn’t speak Arabic, got fed up and started yelling at Agent Fox in Cantonese. Greg is on the Asiatic Operations team. He doesn’t understand Cantonese. This almost started a fist fight. Of course, I didn’t know any of this until Sean shut them up (in Spanish, of course) and explained._

_Good natured bicker, but god, I hope no one runs missions like that._

_I think Darcy has decided we’re friends now. Every time the agents started, as a pack of curious agents often do, to shift into a more interrogative stance, he'd get them back to talking and joking about themselves. I don’t know how he did it; it was subtle. The command center is Yancy’s element. The middle of a crowd is Darcy’s, and he’s gotten even better at it than the last time I saw him. Eventually, they inevitably got around to bitching about the boss Yancy, he got them so confounded about some implausible part of one of Clara’s missions, they stopped paying attention for a moment. And when they did, I swear, he turned around, gestured pointedly at the quiet debate taking placed behind him, looked me dead in the eyes, and winked. And then without looking away, he told the agents they were being bad hosts, and to get back on topic, and then he was back to normal, placing himself on the side, almost out of frame. Pushing and pulling conversation precisely, without ever quite seeming like he was doing anything at all._

_Sean Darcy is the kind of person who decides he’s your friend, and doesn’t much care what_ you _think about the situation. I’m still waiting on an apology, but…I’ll allow it, for now._

_Goddamn, but I do have a lot of dossiers to read tomorrow._

 

_PERSONAL LOG – 2/02_

_I was working next to the fountain today and I absentmindedly sat one of the thin dissolve-in-water-to-destroy-sheets in the water. I’m an idiot._

_No one called today except, surprisingly, Clara. She was about to take off to handle a “conference” in Rome. She said she wasn’t really supposed to be saying anything, but did imply the new situation might be related to “recent aerial experiments” carried out by “overexcited theologians”. That bit of cryptic doubletalk was all I could get from her before she had to run._

_If it’s the missiles, gone off to whomever we’d been after in Milan…_

_If it is,then there isn’t much I can do about it today. I think I can almost shoot well enough to pull off infiltrating an Al-Samad base, especially if most of the guards do suck, like Mina seems to think._

_If not…well, I’m going to get it done anyway._

_Pain is in the mind._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live


	9. AP-6.12-SA2: Bug Al-Samad Airport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an Alpha Protocol op goes, for once, surprisingly smoothly, and agents secure valuable information on Al-Samad movements

\------------------------

Sunday, 2/03, 18:27

Al-Samad Airfield

East of Jizan, Saudi Arabia

\------------------------

It was a terrible airport, no matter how you looked at it. The small collection of concrete trapezoidal hanger were surrounded on three sides by tall, lumpy cliffs. The runway jutted awkwardly through the narrow opening in the cliff walls, and straight outwards. It would take nerves of steel to land anything bigger than a breadbox here. Someone saw this clearing and thought, _“I need to build an airport right-fucking-here_.”

It had one advantage.

The only easy way for an enemy agent to sneak in was through the guarded gap in the cliffs.

So, I had to improvise, climbing down the shortest cliff face as soon as night fell, scaling the fence behind one of the shorter hangers, and doing a brilliant job ignoring the drugged-out pain from my shoulder.

Mina, on the earpiece, was less than impressed.

“Try not to alert the camp,” she commented lightly, over my sporadic, hardly noticeable, very, very quiet cursing. “If you do, we may lose our chance to find Shaheed.”

Some guy was actually behind the damn hanger, sleeping. I suppose he thought he wouldn’t get caught there. I put a tranq in him for good measure.

“Sure is a lot of security,” she added. I checked my pants pockets for the bug I was supposed to be planting. Still there, secure, blinking quietly.

“Tell me about it,” I said. From the top of the cliffs, I counted at least three makeshift wooden lookout posts, bristling with cameras and ugly, heavy looking turrets. “There’s cameras all over the place.”

“It’s bad. But it also means they’ve got something here worth protecting.”

“Judging from the schematics,” Mina offered, as began making my way around the small hangar. “There’s a security gate cutting you off from the tower.”

I don’t know how she was making heads or tails of those schematics.

“Any way around it?” Out on the tarmac a guard walked between parked trucks and stacked crate. The gate straddled the tarmac a little way down, beyond the hangar. A matching hangar sat on the other side, only a few feet from the gate.

There was a ladder at the back of my hangar. Unlike Mina, I didn’t have crystal clear schematics. High ground it was, then.

The sound of loud clacking typing came over the earpiece.

“Should be a terminal for the gate in one of the buildings…” she said, distracted, as the typing noises continued. “Aside from the panel on the gate itself, but…”

There was always a catch, wasn’t there?

“…walking right up to the gate’ll leave me exposed,” I finished. “Got it.”

I crouched down and inched to the edge of the roof. The other hangar was only a little bit away. Possible too far to jump. The other hangar, though, had metal walkway a little further down which extended – barely – across the gate.

“I might be able to find a way over it,” I thought out loud. The last time I tried this…

“If you can fly,” she said, a trace of laughter present, “you’re welcome to try.”

Well, this _was_ an airport. “I think you’d be surprised.”

Facts were facts, though. There were too many eyes here. All it’s gonna take to get caught one foot getting caught on camera, is one too many unconscious bodies, is a shell casing found where no shell casings should be.

The only question, then, is _who_ is going to get caught? An Alpha Protocol agent tracking Shaheed…or a rogue Spanish agent on the second round of a grudge match on a mission to destroy a weapons stockpile? If that happens, were they really gonna dig any deeper than _hey, didn’t we bomb a Barcelona metro last month_ and _Spain’s denying involvement, it_ must _be them_. And then _wait, Spain has secret agents_? But by then, it’s too late.

I doubted they would even think to check the airport database for bugs unless they were simultaneously overstaffed and paranoid.

This is why you don’t leave the guy who can speak multiple languages with multiple accents in an office complex in DC.

 

* * *

 

The gap between the roof and the metal walkway on the second hanger looked much bigger than it had before I jumped. _In retrospect_ , I thought, dangling by one hand from the bottom of the railing, trying to get a firm enough hold to pull myself up, _I think I’ll take the gate next time_.

 

* * *

 

“Mike, I’ve got some IDs on some of the men in the camp,” said Mina the wizard. Maybe she hacked the camera feeds? “Looks like a couple of Shaheed’s elites are here. If you can take them out…”

The service walkway from the outside had continued through an easily picked door to the inside. Shaheed should have stuck his elites up here. I could easily see both red ski mask clad men ducking in and out of aisles, each shelving unit looking like something you expected to see at Home Depot, not in an airplane hangar.

“…then I won’t have to worry about running into them later,” I concluded. I waited until they were at opposite ends of opposite aisles, taking a moment to swap my tranqs for bullets with real bite. Their bright red masks made great targets. Unfortunately, the second guard turned around just as I was nailing the first one. He got a few shots off before I put three in his chest. Two regular guards charged in through the parted hanger doors already shooting. A rifle and what sounded like a shotgun. Clearly, they had no clue where I was.

I thought about shouting something insulting in Spanish, but I was currently shooting to kill. If they survived long enough to describe me to someone, I was doing a bad job.

I pegged the first one on my first shot. He slumped back against the hanger door, while the second started swinging his shotgun around erratically. The sight of two dead elite guards was probably pretty unnerving. Speaking of which.

“Got the last of Shaheed’s elite guard,” I reported to Mina. The shotgun holder stopped shooting for moment, electing instead to nervously scan the hanger.

“Nice job!” she complimented. He wasn’t doing a good job of scanning; he never looked up. I aimed at the center of his chest, and fired twice. “One less thing to worry about.”

He collapsed, shotgun skittering away, blood bubbling out of the hole in his front quickly, then slower, and slower. His hand grasped weakly for wound, almost of its own accord. I aimed more carefully, shot at his forehead this time, and then he stopped moving. No point in him suffering.

 

* * *

 

There was no one else outside the hanger, or even in the opposite hanger. There was, however, a small computer, with a split screen feed of multiple cameras. I shut it all down, then put a round through the monitor and the CPU..

“And that’s that.” I reported. They could get it back online, given time. For now, it would do.

“Good job – you’ve shut down the hanger cameras.”

“Hm,” she added, almost immediately. “The ones at the tower are on a different circuit, though.”

So, she _did_ have access to the camera feeds. One mystery down.

 

* * *

 

The second field gate was bent and warped, more a tribute to a gate than anything else. I climbed over a bent segment that connected to the back of the bunker, and landed behind a dusty shipping container. The control tower was right down the tarmac, separated by yet another gate, a couple of guards, and the third lookout tower. A massive yellow spotlight on the tower created a harsh circle of light in the middle of the tarmac. Both guards hovered inside, talking quietly.

It was dark outside, but not so dark someone sneaking around couldn’t be seen. The spotlight was perfect, though. It cast deep orange-black shadows off every mountain of crates, every shipping container, every defensive concrete barrier planted in the middle of the tarmac. I moved from shadow to shadow, pausing whenever the guards turned towards where I crouched, edging closer and closer to the tower as their movements got more and more skittish. I think they were spooked. They had to have heard the firefight. The shots and then nothing but the wind rustling palm trees. No wonder they were staying in the light.

Their mistake.

As soon as I was under the lookout tower, I fired a tranq in the back of one of the guards. The other swung his rifle up, pointing it to the formless nighttime beyond his circle of light, and then froze, reaching around to his own back, feeling for the dart and not making it in time.

Meanwhile, the guard in the lookout tower swung his legs over his ladder and started descending, head over his shoulder, calling to his subordinates. Since he wasn’t looking at me, I let him make it closer to the ground before I landed him with a tranq as well.

Beside the lookout tower was the door to the last hanger. I pushed it open, and there was a guard, stretching, back to the door. The sound of the wooden door scraping along the concrete ground stopped him mid-yawn.

He looked over his shoulder at me. I looked at him.

We were both paralyzed for a moment. Then he spun around, grasping at a shotgun. I ran, tackled him, grabbed the shotgun as he got it free, and threw it across the room.

This was the last hangar before the control tower. Time to make an example.

I grabbed the front of the guard’s uniform in one hand, grabbed a handful of his hair in the other, and banged him against ground sharply. Not _too_ hard, just enough to daze. He looked up at me, wide-eyes bouncing around haphazardly. I shook him hard enough to get his attention.

_“¿Habla español?”_ I shouted gruffly, pulling his face closer. His eyes grew even wider, and he started shaking his head quickly and trying to squirm free. I slammed his head back into ground, planted a knee on his stomach and a forearm across his throat, then did my best to look like someone whose countrymen had just been murdered by these dipshits. It wasn’t hard.

“ _Where…to find…”_ I growled in Arabic, slurring the words, and purposefully trying to sound foreign. I had no idea how to fake a Spanish accent in Arabic. _“...armory?”_

He raised his hands very slowly, and pointed over his head to the inside of the bunker. There sat some five or six pallets, each stacked high with metal containers, or wooden crates with numbered labels burned into the sides.

Oh.

I looked back down at the man. Had I gotten the point across fully? He was gasping, hands shaking as he kept motioning to the crates. I doubt it. He was probably too shaken up. By the time they debriefed him, ‘one Spanish agent’ would be ‘a half dozen possessed…’ I don’t know. Whatever boogeyman Saudis believed in.

I freed his throat, instead opting for one hand on his forehead, and reached around for my pistol. The shaking stopped in short order. Good. I fit the barrel neatly, lightly, under his chin, leaned over him, until our eyes were inches apart.

“ _This_ ,” I said, quietly, still in slurred Arabic, “ _for Spain_. _You help, you live. ¿Entiende? You understand?”_

I waited, hovering over him, while he tried to make his lips work.

“ _Ne-ne-ne…”_ he began stammering, in Arabic. Then he surprised me. _“Sí.”_

Huh. Well, that’s what I get for assuming shit. Not that I was going to let him help anyway. I pulled the pistol away, watched relief fill his eyes, then shot him in the chest. His eyes went straight to the dart before his head fell back against the floor. And then I went to work, rummaging in his pockets for spare grenades.

“Looks like they’ve got a stockpile of weapons here,” I reported. Four frag grenades. I’d make do. “Gonna see if I can destroy these crates before they get shipped out.”

I started cracking open crates, hunting around for bullets – leave a bullet loaded in the chamber of the wrong gun, in the wrong way, and you can get to it implode under the right conditions – when I found something better. A full crate of brand new incendiary grenades.

“All right, Mike,” Mina said. I grabbed a grenade, pulled the lever and worked the pin free, stowed it under the lid of the nearest metal container of guns, anddove behind the farthest one. “But the control tower comes first.”

The grenade went off with a muted _blat_ noise, the container’s metal lid rising, then falling with a _clang._ One down…

I looked around. About fifty more to go. And once I’d handled those fifty, _then_ the control tower.

After all, I had to maintain my cover.

 

* * *

 

The control tower was as small and inept as the airport itself. The lookout towers might have been taller. And security was pathetic. Someone had left the roof access panel wide open.

“I’m the control tower now,” I said, looking up at the panel. _Close the door, Al-Samad._

“Look around for any computers,” Mina instructed. I pushed open the door to the access closet. Several pairs of soft footsteps carried from one end of the hallway. “They may have flight records stored on them we can use to help track Shaheed.”

I poked my head out further, and was greeted by a surprised look from a beefy guard decked out in full desert camo. Oops.

I pulled back, cringing as he started calmly calling information about an intruder out. Footsteps pattered over to the closet. A pistol edged around the corner. Great.

I’d had the foresight to bring a couple of Al-Samad’s incendiary grenades along with me. I didn’t like the idea of setting the closet on fire. I liked the idea of dying there even less.

I crouched, keeping an eye on the barrel, and rolled the grenade to where I hoped his foot was.

_Three…_

I grabbed the ladder, and started up. No need to be here when that went off.

_two…_

The gun was fully around now, part of a hand coming into view. I pulled myself up on the roof, reached out to the access hatch…

_One_.

The man screamed. I pushed against the hatch, propelling myself forward and it closed, the smallest tongue of fire curling around the edge and dying in the night air.

 

* * *

 

Poor bastards. I felt for them, I really did. I snuck back in through a side door and watched them run hard to help the camo guy. One dropped his pistol on the way, tore off his outer coat. He was frantically patting the still-smoldering body. Another had wrapped his jacket around his hands and was tugging at the body’s torso. He’d managed to get the guy free of the smoking doorway. A third was smothering spots on the wall. All three of them had done a number in the short time it took me to cross the tiny little roof, find a door, and break my way in. There were hardly any flames left.

Even so, I was let them work for a minute before I tranquilized them. If the airport burned down, we couldn’t very well use it to track Shaheed.

And, for good measure, I tranq’d the burning body. I didn’t know if he would live. I doubted it. Either way, being conscious probably hurt like hell.

 

* * *

 

In the end tower wasn’t even tall enough to warrant an elevator, only a couple of flights of stairs. My apartment is higher up than that.

The computers in the tower weren’t much more respectable. The first computer’s login password was 12345. It didn’t have anything good on it, just the links to a few of Al-Samad’s minor airport funding accounts.

The flight logs themselves were sealed behind _two_ passwords. The login for that computer (guess), and the password protecting the control tower access program. On a whim, I tried 12345 again, but it seemed like someone had actually gone through some effort with this one. They were using an Arabic keyboard, and since I didn’t know the Arabic equivalent of ‘password’…hm. This might be fun.

I’d pulled a chair over and was just getting settled when Mina offered some advice.

“Are you trying to break the tower access program?”

_12345…6?_ Nope. Worth a shot. How about _00000_? Nope.

“Trying is…” I said “…not the word for it.”

Unless they wrote it on a sticky note somewhere? That’d be great.

“Try,” she said, concentrating, and then rattled off about five seconds worth of numbers.

“Whoa,” Five three eight seven nine…what? “Slow down.”

She repeated them again, this time in blocks of threes.

“We call it the Al-Samad Master Code,” she explained as I typed the last few. Time to see if it worked. “Whenever Al-Samad needs to up the security on a program, or computer, that’s what they use.”

The console all but shook itself to life, coughing dust, as data streams, scheduling windows, and a whole host of other confusing control tower programs began popping up all over the screen.

“They haven’t been using it much lately, but on these older systems…”

Bingo. A tab called ‘logs’ popped up. The analysts were going to have a field day with this.

“Done,” I said, a moment later. “Transmitting the logs now.”

“Why thank you, Mr. Thorton.”

One more thing to do. I pulled the half-dollar sized listening device from its secure pocket.

“It seems you’ve found the Al-Samad flight records,” Mina reported. “Can’t wait to analyze these.”

That makes one of us. I peeled the protective layer off the epoxy side of the device, pressed the sync bottom, and stuck it as far behind the console as I could reach.

It took me a second to bury the bug’s controlling software. With passwords like 12345 on their logins, I suppose I could have just renamed the bug SECRET WIRETAP, stuck a link on someone’s desktop, and no one would have known any better.

“Receiving,” Mina announced. “Link’s strong, we’re good.”

Outside the control tower windows, clouds puffed up on the horizon, blocking out the stars and the moon. If it got much darker, I might be able to slip out the front door, instead of climbing back up the cliffs.

 “Now,” she instructed. “Get out of there.”

The smouldering guy was dead the second time I walked by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live


	10. Travel Log: Operation Sandworm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RECORD 168.22/6.12-6.10, RECORD 168.23/6.12-6.9, and FILE 168-B 23 recovered from LOCATION 12

_What_ time _was it?_

I sat up and rubbed grains of Saudi Arabian sand out of my eyes. I felt slightly unsteady, and-

BEEP!

A light on the television pulsed red. Dawn peeked through the windows. I shook my head, and few more grains of sand fell. I needed a shower. What was I doing, again?

BEEP!

Oh. Someone from Alpha Protocol was calling. At least they waited until…5 o’clock? 6?

I sat up. I was on the sofa. Hm. Makes sense; I was in front of the TV. I guess I hadn’t made it into the bedroom yesterday night

BEEP!!

Okay, I get it. I stood up, nearly fell over, and managed to hit the transmit button on top of the TV anyway. While it clicked and popped, connecting, I flopped back on the sofa.

“Mike,” Mina’s cheery voice intoned. A second later, the picture cut in. “Glad to see you awake. After you got spotted yesterday…”

Memories vaguely began re-assuming more solid shapes. I’d made it out of the gate, I knew that, before reinforcements had arrived…did someone hit me with an EMP grenade or something? My head was killing me.

“Security was heavier than I was expecting,” I admitted. I think I’d invented several new Spanish curses. The image of me, dodging a camo Humvee came to mind. Then, the machine crashing into a palm tree, driver half getting out, half falling out of the door, bullets wounds stitched up and down his side. “Still, I should have been more careful.”

I rubbed the side of my head, and shook the foggy images clear. I’d sort that out later.

“It may be a problem in the future. If Shaheed feels we’re on to him, he’ll bring more of his elite guard in – which could make your upcoming mission more difficult.”

Aspirin first. Shower afterwards. Future problems, much much later.

“I’ll have to be on my guard, then. Not much else to be done. Is the bug transmitting?”

“Loud and clear, no problems. Parker’s on it now, which is why I called. It looks like we have something.”

I hadn’t been asleep for _that_ long, had I?

“Shaheed’s coordinates-” she reported- “and an ETA.”

_Now_ I was awake. I sat up.

“How reliable is it?”

Mina’s eyes scanned back and forth, reading something on her own screen.

“Ninety percent. The information we got from Nasri helped…and the transition from the airfield confirms it.”

“When?”

“Five days, including today,” she said, typing. “I’ll send you the precise time.”

On the floor, my PDA rattled. How did that end up-

Mina interrupted my thought process, sedately continuing. She was doing a good job scrubbing any excitement, if that was the right word for it, out of her tone.

“It looks like this is it, Mike. Westridge’ll be with you on the com, and I’ll-” she said, nodding once- “be monitoring in case things get…difficult.”

Five days. _Five days_. It was hardly any time at all.

“What about the Al-Samad camp?” I…could possibly take care of it. “Should I still check it out, or…?”

“There’s time. You may find something useful.”

There was time if I had good intel. If I worked quickly. If there weren’t that many people stationed there. That was a lot of ifs for a 'maybe you'll find something kind of useful'.

“Try not to killed, though,” she joked, “or else we’ll have to find another agent.”

“You know, you need to work on your compassion,” I suggested.

She assumed an over-exaggerated grumpy face. “I’m too busy working on my pragmatism.” The she smiled. “Well, you have work to do.”

A truckload of it, if I was headed to the detention camp. I nodded, a stabbing jolt in my head reminding me about the aspirin I was supposed to be getting.

“Goodbye, then, Mike. Oh, and when you go after Shaheed, Westridge will contact you. If you’re going after the prison, you’ve got Darcy.”

“All right. Thorton out.”

The screen went black, saving me the necessity of having to get up and turn it off myself. Aspirin. Then shower. Then truckload of work.

 

* * *

 

BEEP!

I’d finished dragging a towel over my hair and had just started scrounging around my suitcase for something somewhat clean to wear, when the television started up the shrill beeping again. Goddamn it. I pulled on some jeans, stuck an arm through a beige button-down, and headed towards the living room.

BEEP!

I almost pressed the transmit button. But Mina – stiff, perfectly ironed jacket, free of creases, Mina of the never a hair out of place…right now, I was only technically dressed. I took a second to button my shirt. If whatever update she had couldn’t wait that one second, we were already screwed.

BEEP!

I pressed transmit, and sat down.

“Mina, I haven’t had a chance–” _to look at the files yet_ , I’d been prepared to say, but it wasn’t actually Mina.

“What’s up, Mikey?” Sean said, with a hostile aura of biting sarcasm. He spun around in a desk chair to face the screen. “Problems already?”

I caught my hand on its way to my shirt buttons, which, turns out, were mismatched.

“Just…checking in.” I couldn’t let my hand just sit there, balled-up midair, so I tried a small wave. It was one of the stupider things I’d done with my life. “Had some questions about the mission. And Alpha Protocol.”

His eyebrows rose and he gave me a look. I could see why. I couldn’t be checking in. _He_ called _me_. So I wasn’t at my best. So what.

“And you called me _-"_ he said, the derision in his tone was so strong this time, it shook me free of my thoughts- “instead of Westridge?”

“Lucky me,” he added, snidely. He wasn’t openly glaring at me, but judging from the tightness in his eyes, he wasn’t far from it. The brusqueness was bewildering. So much for friends.

At any rate, we didn’t have time for this problem today, so...

“There a problem, Darcy?”  I said. I didn’t match his attitude. I beat it, giving him the glare he so clearly wanted to give me, allowing the stress of having to take on a crazed armed terrorist leader in less than a week put force behind the question.

He tried to meet my eyes, but he couldn’t. He sighed instead, and looked off to one side, attitude deflating slightly.

“I was…” he glanced at me. I didn’t soften. He looked back down, clenched his jaws together, and straightened up, self-satisfied half-smile back, even if he still wasn’t looking at me. “Been thinking about how you managed to get this mission instead of me.”

Then he shrugged broadly, something terribly compelling catching his interest on the other side of his screen. He was wearing a wrap-around earbud, and as he shook his head, I could see the wire trailing down his neck, moving underneath his shirt.

“But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine too,” he finished lightly, the obvious care with which he picked his words showing that no, it would _not_ be alright. I felt like sighing, but he _still_ wasn’t meeting my stare, and I didn’t want to make whatever was going on with him worse. Just to get past it.

“I don’t remember asking for it so much as it being dumped in my lap,” I informed him.

“So there wasn’t even a discussion?” His eyes wandered over to mine, even as he crossed his arms suspiciously.

“Nope,” I said, as patiently as I could. “No questions, no conversation.”

And then, because his arms were still folded; and because his eyes, finally meeting mine, were still tense; and _maybe_ because, I got it, the way getting grounded gets under your skin, makes you question yourself and your use, your value, as an agent, I smiled. Sincere, friendly, hopefully reassuring.

"Nothing," I affirmed.

“Huh.” He leaned back, uncrossed his arms, and it was like a different person, for a split second. He relaxed, all the tension from his eyes evaporating. Open was a good word for it. I think if I’d asked him something, anything, right then and there, he would have told me.

But I didn’t. The moment was so fast, so…almost not there, that it was already fading by the time my thoughts caught up to my eyes.

“All right,” he continued. He grinned, shrugged, offered an apologetic hand wave all in one. I nearly missed his faint cringing, the suggestion of embarrassment. “I thought you might’ve…convinced Westridge not to send me.”

He shook his head again, and the moment was gone, his regular arch attitude was back, smirking at the whole world. In contrast to whatever that had been, he seemed defensive. Maybe it was the way he leaned back, affecting ease. Shoulders loose, one arm casually dangling off the armrest of his chair, lips slightly parted. In a civilian, common, an invitation, even. In an agent, a _good_ agent…that mix of laid-back defensiveness bordered on threatening. Someone you didn't mess with.

Someone who shock trapped doors and stole other people’s jobs while they weren’t looking.

“Guess I was wrong,” he finished. I don’t know how he physically managed to sound smug about being wrong, but there you have it.

“So,” I interrupted my own thoughts, ordering myself to move on. _You don’t have time, remember?_ “Sounds like you’re going to be my handler when I infiltrate the Al-Samad camp.”

“Yeah, I got stuck handholding you,” he teased. “Hope that’s not a problem.”

Memories of gadgets orientation flashed through my mind. EMP blue spots in my eyes. Truck shrapnel slicing past my hat. 

“Nothing’s _wrong_ , just…” Shocked and twitching guards, and _someone_ laughing. “…making sure we’re good.”

I think he must’ve sensed what I was thinking about, because his attitude flipped from flippant to severe without a second’s notice.

“Look.” He frowned at me. “Orientation’s one thing, a mission’s another. People think I have an attitude, but it doesn’t keep me from doin’ my job.”

He paused, and I stayed quiet.

“I admit,” he admitted, “I’d rather be on the mission, but you’re-” he emphasized the point, poking a finger towards me- “the one Westridge picked. So let’s get this done.”

I sat forward. I didn’t understand Darcy, but a mission, I could do.

“The Al-Samad detention camp where they’ve got the weapons stockpiles – anything you can tell me?”

“Getting satellite imagery of the area’s been hard, my contacts haven’t turned up much.”

“What’s the problem with the imagery?” Maybe it wasn’t a total loss. Mina’s good with unintelligible schematics.

“Camp’s remote, and dug into the side of a canyon. Beautiful view, but lousy for spying from above.”

Strike one for the camp.

“Any other intel you can give me?” I asked.

“I’m still checkin’ leads, but not much right now. The airliner going down has really scared my contacts – been a bitch getting in touch with ‘em.”

“Contacts, with an ‘s’?” I asked. “How many people do you know over here, anyway?”

He laughed. “Not enough,” he said. “But as for getting into the detention center…the thing about the camp is weather – sandstorms are hitting the area pretty hard. Which is to your advantage.”

“How?” Cause it sounded like a strike two to me.

“It cuts down visibility for you and them. You need to sneak in before they know you’re there. So just wait for the storm to kick up,” he said, raising one open hand above his armrest, “then take ‘em out,” he concluded, bringing his hand back down sharply.

“All right. Good to know.” Not that it was going to be that easy. _If_ I was going. Hadn’t made up my mind yet.

“Oh, one other thing,” he said, with a casual shrug, “they’ve dug in deep, with a maze of tunnels beneath the camp. They’ve got any weapons down there, it’s gonna be a pain getting to them.”

And there’s strike three,

“So what do you recommend?” I asked, hoping for his opinion on the mission feasibility. For me, to many ‘ifs’ involved. I didn’t like it. I more than didn’t like it – I got an uneasy feeling even thinking about it. Too many ifs, too many potential complications and potential problems, too little time. _20 th percentile_.

“They probably have as much trouble finding their way around as you do,” he instead said, “so follow power lines or work lights when you can, might guide you to where they’ve got their stockpiles.”

I guess not going on the mission wasn’t an option for him. Made sense. I mean, he lost the main mission, and now here I was, about to cancel this one too.

I didn’t say anything, just sat for a moment, thinking. After a second of confused frowning, he stopped studying me and let me stew.

No intel, no time, no need. I mean, how would Sean feel if I went off on this op and got myself killed, and Shaheed got away? How would _I_ feel?

I would be dead. I wouldn’t be feeling anything.

We could always come back after Shaheed was taken care of.

The missiles might not even be there. They might, but they might not.

_No_ , I started to say, but I made the mistake of looking at Sean Darcy, and his blue-grey eyes, and my mouth got the better of me. This is why I don’t have these discussions in the mornings.

“I got it,” I said, instead of saying _hell no, this is a shit idea._ “If they use those same routes to move around, shouldn’t be too hard to pick them off, either.”

“I’ll upload what maps I have to your PDA,” he offered, talking fast. Good idea, for him. Don’t give me chance to change my mind, why don’t you? “They probably keep the weapons in the bottom of the base in case they uh…”

"What?"

What, exactly, are you going to add to make this situation worse?

“Well, explode.” He said, cringing a little, sounding apologetic for the first time.

_Pour l'amour du cie._ This was a dumb idea, and every single thing he said made it sound worse. He truly did have a talent for adding on to already bad situations.

If I was going to run this op then I didn’t need to be talking. If anything, I needed to get to work, right-fucking-now. I stood up.

“That’s all I need right now. See you in the field, Darcy.”

It wasn’t my best moment, but I didn’t wait for a response to turn the transmission off. At least the aspirin was kicking in.

 

_PERSONAL LOG - 2/04_

_In my long and illustrious professional career, I’ve had longer days than today. A lot longer. But this one makes the list, even if it’s at the bottom._

_Turns out the bug I planted at the airport yesterday, or was that early this morning? I didn’t get back until the middle of the night. Anyway, Shaheed’s coming in five days. Four now, I guess, since today’s over. Which means I’m on a self-imposed accelerated schedule. Why? Because I’m an idiot who makes bad decisions like agreeing to run the mission to the detention center – sorry, it’s not just a mission. It’s Operation Sandworm now, of all things._

_I blame Darcy for this. He blames him, too, which is fine with me. He called in the morning with zero information, and I think he felt bad about it, because I had to spend half the morning ignoring his follow up calls. Finally, I let him patch in through the earpiece, and we spent the rest of the day working – well, the rest of my day. I’m at least some eight hours ahead of him, depending on where the Greybox is._

_Mina also helped out with what unintelligible schematics we did have of the prison. That was my idea. I was right; she was brilliant at deciphering them. I think she was showing off. Fine by me._

_So, what we know._

_Nasri’s interrogation has revealed an interesting minor fact. Some Al-Samad nobody stationed in the detention center has gotten control of Nasri’s laptop. Get this – the guy keeps a client list. Now Al-Samad has it, and Yancy wants it, so I’ve got to go get it. Playing gofer._

_We also know the specific details of the base’s construction. It was, lemme see if I can remember this verbatim, built in the 1960s by some general Naber or Nassar or something. Or it might have been an Egyptian president. Someone was trying to start an anti-Saud uprising in Yemen. Turns out Sean is really into history. I need to introduce him to Wikipedia, if he isn’t_ already _an editor or something. Thanks to his historical research and Mina’s schematic magic, we know the base is built into the ridge such that sentries can’t get a clear view across. That’s good. Unless they radio out, no backup for them._

_We know a fairly large sandstorm is supposed to hit the area on mission day. We’re going to try and time it so we can get in right along with it. I’m going to need all the help I can get to sneak past a camp full of prison guards. Breaking in has got to be easier than breaking out, though. Right?_

_Sean’s getting his friendly contacts out of the area, so don’t have to worry about that. I hadn’t been worried about that before, but_ of course _Darcy has multiple friendly contacts in a remote Al-Samad detention camp. I asked him how he knows so many people over here. He said, I shit you not, “What can I say, my grasp of the Arabic language is rivaled only by my charm, and modesty.” Then he only talked in Arabic for a good hour. In short: who knows how he know who he knows._

_We paid one of those contacts to give us intel on site security. They have a decent security system in place, but the building is old, stone, not designed for wiring. So they run everything through one rusty circuit breaker. With no failsafes. We got the location of the breaker. That’s going to be useful._

_It was nice having someone to talk things out with, for once. Even if it was Darcy. We’re going to get back to it again at 5 tomorrow. I’d ideally like to get more solid intel on the location of the missiles._

_Four days. Hard to believe._

_PERSONAL LOG – 2/05_

_Yancy has tacked on another objective to the op, so I guess I’m stuck doing this now. The communications hub at the camp has suddenly become a point of interest to Parker. I’m supposed to break in and upload any important data to our servers, then destroy theirs. Yancy wants_ all _the data, of course. I’ll try, but I’ve got an apology ready on deck._

_Also, the spike in network activity we’ve been seeing at the camp? We figured they had to have fairly significant infrastructure in place to support that. So we started digging around…turns out they have a radio tower set up there, and not a shabby one, either. It’s joined the list of things to destroy._

_Sean wanted to teach me how to tinker with the incendiaries and frags I already have, to make some kind of Franken-grenade, but I don’t much feel like dying, or ‘probably losing a half a hand’. I’ll destroy the tower like a regular person, thanks._

_Got my ride in all settled, as well. Alpha Protocol just got air support back in the area, now that they’re back from delivering Nasri. Given the fit Yancy gave me about hitching a ride last time – actually tried to remind me that he said no backup, me his only nephew standing there dripping blood from my arm – I don’t quite think he knows about it. Well, I won’t tell if Sean doesn’t._

_Speaking of Sean, he took off halfway through the day. Said he had something to take care of, but that he’d be fine for the op tomorrow. I hope it isn’t related to whatever’s going on in Rome._

_Though if they find the missiles…_

_No. I’d still have to go. For the data. For the computer. And…not much else. For love of country, I suppose._

_I took some time to practice my hand to hand. Tried to work past the troubling stiffness in my shoulder. It’s not going to hinder me significantly. But I’m guessing the tunnels are going to be tight, and if I have to fight…_

_Well, I’ve done about all I can do, given the time constraints. Tomorrow, I have a few hours to go over details, and then I have to get clear of the city and meet the chopper._

_Three days until Shaheed lands._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live


	11. AP-6.12-SA3: Operation Sandworm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we raid a prison camp and _someone_ learns the value of looking over his shoulder

\------------------------

Wednesday, 2/06, 14:46

Al-Samad Detention Camp

Outside Jizan, Saudi Arabia

\------------------------

The helicopter crew had been antsy the entire flight, only breaking the silence for terse snippets of instructions to one another. I understood it. The sandstorm was starting to kick up, too early. In between gusts of wind, everything was coated in a sandy orange fog. I didn’t envy the crew.

They, it seemed, envied me even less. They dropped me ten minutes out, as close as we could get without having to thread the copter through a canyon during the storm.

“Last words?” shouted the tall one. Then they were gone, swallowed up by the storm.

Finding my way down into the canyon was a fun piece of work. As you got closer to the canyon floor, the blasts of sand and bits of pebbles became more infrequent. They air kept its hazy pale sheen.

Through the clouded air, the first lookout tower extended over ledges in the canyon side, looked eerie and abandoned with skeletal wooden planks making vague shadowed shapes in the air. If it wasn’t for the guard leaning over the railing farthest from me, it would have been downright unsettling.

“Mikey,” Darcy’s faint signal cracked in my earpiece, as I dove behind an outcropping of rock, hand automatically unholstering my pistol. “You there?”

 Okay. Even with the guard, the tower was a _little_ perturbing

“Yeah,” I said, looking out from the rock. “Sitrep?” The guard turned around, heading for the ladder. Beyond the lookout tower, the canyon bent sharply. Schematics said the canyon was ‘s’ shaped and ended in a bowl-like central section, where the prison was.

“No radio chatter, no alarms,” he said. “Looks like you did a good job of getting in under their radar – wish our choppers could, would’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”

“Bad intel?” I drew a bead on the guard as his foot touched ground, and tranq’d him. Bad intel would be very bad, right now.

“No – the sandstorms. They fuck with the satellite imagery. But,” he added, “they’re great for someone moving in on foot – lets you get in for the kill before the bad guys know you’re there.”

Around the bend in the canyon, a guard stood at attention. Facing the right directions for stopping any escapees. Facing the wrong direction to avoid getting put in a chokehold and knocked out.

“So,” I said, blinking through a sudden flurry of sand, letting some light sarcasm enter my tone as I focused on figuring out if that shadow in the next guard tower was a guard, or a rock.  “Wait for a storm, use it as cover?”

“Probably won’t be that simple,” he conceded. Rock? Or guard? Keeping to the side of the canyon, I sidled up to the base of the tower. “But, hey. That’s why they sent you instead of me, right?”

I could _hear_ the smirk. Never mind. Focus. Rock, or guard? One way to know for sure.

I slowly made my way up the ladder, trying to listen over the sporadic sharp wind. There. A wooden creak, one that didn’t come from the ladder. I reached up to the top rung, got ready, and pulled myself up, pushing off the edge as soon as I got my feet up, and shoulder-slamming the guard over the edge.

You couldn’t hear his neck _snap_ over the wind.

_That wasn’t so bad_ , I was thinking, as I wound my way through the rest of the empty canyon and approached what was supposed to be an open center area.

The trail I was on ended abruptly, high above the large, oval opening in the canyon. To the left side of the area, there was a building set into the stone, with a gated entry door. I’d expected guards. I hadn’t expected the three makeshift guard towers, complete with one massive machine gun turret each. Two of the towers sat side by side on the opposite side of the area from me, separated by a stout, ugly metal gate on the other end of the clearing. The gate had debris scattered behind it, cars, stacks of tires, sandbags. A wooden walkway spanned over the gate, and connected the two towers. Another lookout tower was on my side of the clearing, only a few meters away. The ladder leading from the trail to the canyon base went right by it.

I’d also expected the second building in the clearing, opposite to gated entry door. I didn’t expect the state it was in. Was it fair to call that crumbling collection of walls a building? The top story’s roof was missing chunks; the bottom had holes blasted in it, like someone on the turrets had gone crazy with target practice.

This was pretty bad.

“At the camp. They’re dug in pretty deep,” I reported. An understanding, if ever there was one.

“Any sign of the radio tower?” Darcy asked.

It was hard to miss, in fact. It was on the second story of the crumbling building, near the gate, situated in one of the rooms that was missing all but one of its walls.

“Yeah, it’s across the canyon from me. Lot of open ground in-between.”

“Try not to get spotted – if you get trapped in there…” he warned.

Not helpful, Darcy.

“I know.”

 

How to handle this? First, I needed to be closer. All the guards were out of range. Fortunately, the man in the closest lookout tower chose that moment to focus his attention on the other side of the canyon. I was off the ledge, down the ladder, and through a hole in the building on my right before he started to swing his turret back around. It’s funny just how fast the thought of imminent death can make you move.

To my right, stones stairs with chunks missing led up to the floor above. The sound of footsteps, and dislodged stones, came down from the floor above. Time to get to work.

I climbed the stairs, keeping to the right, and waited for him to walk by. Why is it people never look up or down?  I knocked him out and had to work hard to catch him before he pitched forward, tumbling over the abrupt, broken end of the hallway and down on to the head of the guard below.

On second thought…

I let him go, grabbing the jagged ledge myself and swinging down. The second guard was mumbling to himself, shocked, as he tried wiggle out from under the body of the first one. I didn’t give him a chance.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t even lay a hand on the turret. That’s what a guard in a lookout tower is for, right? To alert people? He put up a hell of a hand to hand fight, when he could have just fired the turret once and called all the other guards down on that one spot.

Some people.

Taking the bridge to the next turret-tower wasn’t a half bad idea. The guard on patrol in the middle of his clearing had his back turned to the gate, and I hit him with a tranq while I ran across. It was a great shot, if I do say so myself.

As was the 1-2-3 takeout I got using the turret a second later. No need to be concerned about sound, now. There were only three guys left, and with the storm, and what we already knew about the geography, it wasn’t like they were going to call anyone else to help out. Especially after I blew their radio tower up.

I didn’t have to watch my back as I made my way over to said radio tower. The stairs in the building were gone, and I got splinters from even looking at the ladders, but I used them anyway. After the cliffs at the airport, I wasn’t interested in doing any climbing for a good long time.

“Found the radio tower,” I said. Not that I ever lost it.

“Now look for the generator,” Darcy instructed. “Should be in a building nearby.”

There was a door directly behind the radio dish. Where else would they put the generator, if not right behind the dish?

Sure enough, I opened the door on to cramped, noisy room. A guard was sitting at a worktable opposite the door, tools scattered around, working on something. The clunking noise of the generator covered the sound of my footsteps as I snuck up behind him and smashed his head into whatever he’d been tinkering with. An alarm, by the looks of it. He twitched, and I hit him again, for good measure.

Then I turned my attention to the generator. Wires ran everywhere. I _could_ grenade it, sure. Or…

I pulled a small knife from my boot. I hadn’t had a chance to use this one yet. Time to slash some stuff.

“Generator’s cut,” I told Sean, hacking my way through the last connections between the stack of generators.

“Got it” he said, disappointment not well hidden. “I’ll signal the choppers now. Can you get to their main computer beneath the camp?”

I jogged back out the door, stopping short as the bars in front of the door to the camp retracted. A guard kicked the doors open, shouting garbled nothings, and charged out. Three more followed, more cautiously.

Keep it light. “I think a way just opened up,” I said.

Two of the guards were in rifle range. I swept my shots wide. No way I could take them out both at once, but now that they were scrambling in the dirt, grabbing their legs and stomachs, I could take a second to aim for their centers.

Two other guards ran over, dropping into a defensive stance, scanning the buildings for the shooter. One fell over, bullet hole in his forehead, and then the other, screaming as bullets chewed through his arm. _Shit_. I was aiming for his heart.

I dropped down the ladder fast, ignoring the sharp sting when a sliver of wooden embedded itself in my hand.

The dirt was already bloody mud by the time I made it over. The man didn’t move. His arm was a mess. The bullets had hit so close together. I put a few through his heart, aiming properly this time.

He’d have bled out in a few more seconds anyway.

“Sorry,” I said to his corpse.

 

* * *

 

It was the first time I’d been cool in Saudi Arabia, even in the safehouse. As I got deeper and deeper into the underground maze that was the abandoned prison complex, it got cooler and cooler, and that was the only good thing about it. I hate being underground almost as much as I hate trains. After a few minutes of descending stairs and walking around twisted unlit stone carved hallways, I felt like tossing pebbles ahead of me to make sure there was still solid ground ahead. The whole experience felt like spelunking in some forgotten sunless cave. Once, a guard emerged from the darkness, lit up by his phone, looking like a ghost. It would have scared the daylights out of me, if there had been daylight. He was too screen-blinded to see me, so I let him past by while I tried to reset my breathing.

Finally, a flickering yellow light showed faintly around a corner, set in the stone above a heavy-duty security door. Someone had left it open. Beyond it, piles of cables ran along the ground, and more pools of light shone from wire fixtures.

“I’m in,” I said to the earpiece as eased past the door, into the light. Into the uncertain, dim, horror movie light. Could Darcy still hear me down here?

“Good. Now get...servers and upload that data.” The signal was faint, and scratchy, and it kept fading in and out, but at least it worked.

“You weren’t kidding about the tunnels in this place,” I told him, my voice was echoing exactly like it would in a cave. Wish I had a flashlight. Lack of preparation.

“Got themselves a hell of maze down here,” I continued, when he didn’t say anything. Or was this signal just cutting out? Stairs on my right, cut from what looked like dislodged boulders, led down to an even deeper darkness, while the tunnel - hallway, I reminded myself - kept going forward. No need to head any deeper into this godawful camp. Right? Darcy? Anyone?

Get a hold of yourself, agent.

“-servers…power.” _Slava bogu._ Darcy’s comparatively calm voice finally cut back in. “…power lines, or work…follow…the source…”

Right. The power lines. I almost forgot.

The power lines ignored the staircase completely.

I don’t know if I would have followed them otherwise.

“They…find their…much as _you_ do,” he added a moment later.

“What?” I asked, but nothing else.

 

* * *

 

Cells lined the stone hallway. One guard sat bored in a chair at the bottom of a tall stairway heading down. He was alert, though. Saw as soon as I stepped a foot around the corner, although with the erratic lights I doubted he knew what he was seeing. He came to check it out, instead of staying put. He was met not with the rat, or whatever he though my foot had been, but a shattered nose and a tranq in the base of his neck.

“Looks like I found the old cells,” I said, hoping I could be heard. They were very old cells. The bars were rusted over. One held a few large square crates – an open one had a damaged AK-47 sticking out of the top. Made sense to store any weapons stockpiles down here, I guess. “Mostly storage.”

“If there’s…see…get inside…” Darcy intermittent voice said.

I’m going to take a wild guess and say he wanted me to poke around inside the cells. The lock on the cell was rustier than the bars. I forwent my usual finesse and bashed it off with my rifle.

“Picked the lock,” I joked, mostly to myself, as it fell.

“Good job,” Sean said, seriously.

The crates were old. Everything was, even the nails scattered around the crates on the cell floor. I flipped the lids off one by one without any trouble. Unless Al-Samad was planning to fight a war with dust and sand…

“No sign of the missiles,” I said. A weaponized sandstorm. Now that was an idea. “Looks like this place has been cleaned out.”

Back to the power lines, and up the stairs then. Maybe that would help the signal.

“Damn,” Sean swore. That came through, loud and clear, and sharp. “Guess that…too much to hope for.”

Too much to hope for, and yet we banked a whole mission on it.

“All right…get to the computer, if you can,” he instructed.

The stairs were narrow, and tall, and though there were powerlines, there were no lights. The darkness was complete. You count’s have seen the reflection off a cat’s eyes in that kind of dark. You probably couldn’t see your way from one stair to another.

“On it,” I whispered.

 

* * *

 

For all having all the detention records, their setup was a little small. Three or four bulky rectangular computer boxes, all civilian off-the-shelf crap, were stacked on a folding table. A dingy laptop cast a circle of beautiful, dull blue light across the small, cramped space. It was locked to one ‘onasri’.

Unlike the airport, though, the look of the setup belied the complexity of the system. It took ages to get past the log in screen, even with the programs on my PDA running. And, I don’t know how they did it, but the system was packed with info.

I set my PDA up to start transferring, and looked at the files that flashed by while it worked.

“Uploading the information now. Lotta data here,” I warned. “And this system looks pretty state of the art.” Once you got into it, at least.

“Receiving…” he said. Something about missiles popped up on the screen, and I opened a copy. “You weren’t kidding.”

He sounded surprised, but I was too busy studying the report on the screen to care about his lack of faith in me.

“Watch your back,” he added. “They probably…guards on the way.”

The data in the document…a lot of numbers, a lot of coordinates, but most worryingly, a lot of Halbech logos.

“These specs look like…” I said out loud, “Like Halbech targeting data, tied into the radio tower.”

The date on the document didn’t make any sense, though. None of the dates lined up with the attack on the plane. They were all before it, in fact. The data had to be from when Al-Samad got the missiles. It was…unnervingly specific. Unnervingly complete. Who did they know, to get access to this?

“-get top side,” Sean interrupted, talking quick and sounding worried even through the static. “If…we could use the… We’ve got company. A lot of it.”

Figure out the missiles later. Focus on getting out of here for now.

“I’m pinned down?” I asked. Where’d they get reinforcements from?

“Got a Blackhawk on…meet up with us topside.”

“Got it,” I said.

The PDA wasn’t nearly done with all the data. Not even close. Yancy wasn’t going to like this. He’d like a blown-up Blackhawk less. Either way, I was going to end up in trouble. Might as well at least go save my ride out of here.

 

* * *

 

Flaming car wreckage scattered as outside the doors a truck in the center of the clearing exploded. Time slowed, a charred shard of metal slicing through the air next to my neck. Then the missile came. I could see it streaking past my face, like it too was moving in slow motion. Time snapped back to full speed as it nicked the top floor of the building I was in, spraying mortar and bricks and stone. A man with a shoulder launcher ran past the door, leaping over a burning tire.

“Mike,” Darcy cut in, as several guards opened fire at once. “Havin’ a little trouble here.”

“No kidding,” I said. I dropped Nasri’s laptop, unslung my AR and got a shot off at the man with the missile launcher as he started to reload.

“Their radio tower is down,” he said, “but we’re getting more resistance than expected.”

Who next? There. A guy taking cover behind a sandbag wall beside the gate, aiming another missile launcher as the Blackhawk came into view over the opposite ridge. I ran, ducking as he swung the thing around like a bat, and made a mess of his stomach with a close range burst from the AR.

“Can you secure the landing zone?” Darcy asked – ordered.

Across the clearing in a lookout tower, a turret started spraying the sky with bullets. I pointed my brand-new missile launcher at the controller, and watched as his tower crumbled in fire.

Who was left? A couple of guys in the gate towers, going crazy with their turrets. Two guys at the radio tower, grenades in hand. One guy charging at me with a knife. _Shit_.

I swung the missile launcher around, his knife connecting, skidding down the metal, nearly knocking me back with the force of his strike.

“Not-” I said. He pulled back, prepared to slash under the launcher, but I kneed him first and brought the tube down hard on his head- “a problem.”

At the end of the gate, next to the radio tower, the man behind the first turret jerked and fell over. Good. Someone on the helicopter had firepower.

Bullets peppered the ground in front of me, and I fell backwards instinctively, swinging the missile launcher around, it was empty, yeah, but the guard on the roof of the camp entrance building didn’t know that. He froze at the sight of the barrel. I dropped it and ran, hitting the wall. How to get up there? How did _he_ get up there? A grenade dropped over the edge, beeping. I dove back towards the entrance, grabbing my AR, centering it on the guard as he dropped a second grenade and fumbled to get his own gun back out. The second grenade hit the ground a moment before his body did, one detonating the other another moment later.

No more guys on the roof. 

The Blackhawk hovered over the cliff edge.

One of the guys at the radio tower hoisted a missile launcher, but he didn’t have the angle to shoot it.

The last turret, then, while they were distracted.

Compared to the ringing cacophony of the turret, the beeping of the grenade was nothing. The final guard on the turret couldn’t have heard it, and he didn’t move. The detonation shook the tower, and the turret fire stopped. At least, it temporarily stopped. I had it going again soon, cutting down the man with the last missile launcher as he got off a pointless shot, and then the one running for the first turret.

For one peaceful second, silence, except the wind and the welcome heavy noise of copter rotors. I took a deep breath, fingers straying for my earpiece, and-

_Goddammit, the laptop._

I’d dropped the goddamn laptop.

Across the basin, two more Al-Samad assholes in elite gear with missile launchers strapped to their backs came rappelling down the cliff face. I gritted my teeth and all but jumped down the ladder, sprinting for the laptop and skidding to a halt, dropping to one knee in the dirt and locking my rifle on to the bastard who’d decided to skip the last few feet of rappelling. He dropped on to the same platform I’d used to gain entrance in the first place, pivoted to point his unstrapped launcher behind me, then collapsed in a pile with a lucky shot to the chest. The second elite’s boots hit the platform right after. I swear I could almost hear the clicking of a new missile settling into the tube, could almost see from all the way across the basin the contorted mask of fury that his lips and eyes made.  

I was diving-rolling towards the camp entrance before I knew he was firing.

I was at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, every limb aching, skin feeling as if on fire, covered in dirt, right around the same time my brain dragged itself back into the fight.

He’d missed, but only just.

I propped myself up on my elbows, lay back down very quickly when a slow, rolling wave of dizziness pushed back. That was fine, laying down was good. Nothing hurt, but that numbness was going to wear off fast. Tomorrow morning was going to be shit.

_If you live that long_ , my brain reminded.

Something detonate outside, the impact shaking dust and small chunks of plaster off the ceiling of the stairway. I forced myself into something like an upright position, tried to breathe past the swimming sense of the world turning around, tried to move past what was going to be a nasty pattern of bruises, and got back up the stairs with a minimum of wincing. The laptop had missed the stairs and had skidded off into a corner. My rifle was in front of it.

I peeked outside quickly, but the man who’d shot at me didn’t break his laser focus. He pulled off another shot at the copter, missed, then with short, swift motions began loading another missile. He didn’t even duck when my bullets cut the rock above his head apart. He got the next rocket out, and locked it in. _Damn_ it. He started raising the barrel again, making minute adjustments and heaving it up to his shoulder. I didn’t have time to track the path, to see if his shot would hit. Only to line up my own shot again, walking closer, centering in.

_Now!_

He shot, and I shot, and he fell over, grasping at the edge of the platform as he toppled – it didn’t help – but his shot was first, and now I definitely had time to track it.

The thing headed straight for the where the Blackhawk hovered, and I started swearing, but pilot was already swinging the tail around in a spiral that made me dizzy all over again to follow. The rocket blew past, and hit rock. The helicopter jerked for a moment, the pilot visibly fighting for control. They nearly hit the same cliff the rocket had just detonated, but it finally stabilized, and headed for the small space beyond the gate and debris.

“All right,” Darcy growled tensely, not an ounce of his usual affected composure. “We’re clear, let’s do this!”

No complaints from me.

I scooped the laptop up, strapped my rifle back on. Happy to leave this place. I would have run, except even walking, I was having a tiny little bit of trouble judging how far my foot was from the ground. The aches starting to settle in didn’t help. Neither did the blood dripping into my eye – okay, I had a cut on the side of my head. Good to know. I reached a gate tower, threw the laptop up – if the screen wasn’t broken before that, I’d have been shocked – and started up after it.

 

* * *

 

Gun in my face. Eh? Couldn’t focus on it. Every sense hijacked by the piercing, white-noise pain in my lower right leg. The gun shook, someone said something. Arabic? I tried to focus, tried to ignore, didn’t know what exactly I was supposed to be ignoring or focusing on, actually.

“Wha?” I managed. Shot? Hot, cold. Burning both ways. Been shot worse before. Still, this? Vise-like, insistent, gnawing on the bone.

The gun shook in my face again. It was attached to a hand. That hand, to a guard. He spat out fluid Arabic. Another guy showed up, walking to stand next to him, shook a laptop at me. A laptop. I blinked.

Right. The mission. I had to have been out for only a few seconds. The tower was beside me, still, the sound of the helicopter loud, still. The mission.

_Fuck the mission_ , said the spikes digging into my leg.

_Fuck you_ , I thought back, and tried to curl the fingers in my left hand into a ball. They were, however, already bent into a fist, fingernails cutting into my hand.

The guy with the gun bent over, shouting louder, pistol trained on my head. I let him finish before I decked him with my left fist, reached out with my right hand, and grabbed his pistol from where it had fallen. It wasn’t a very powerful strike, but it was surprising. He was too close, too stunned to dodge the pistol shots, even as poorly aimed as they were. And the second guy had to drop the laptop before he could get his gun out. He wasted a second and I shot him in the leg, then the chest.

There. The adrenaline was back. Or it never left, doesn’t matter which. What did matter was I made it up the ladder without using my leg too much. What did matter was the turret was heavy and sturdy enough to lean on. What did matter, when two more guys emerged from the entrance to the camp, was that you could lean on the turret and shoot at the same time.

What mattered was the hint of exhaustion that was beginning to creep into the edges of my vision. Time to get the fuck out of here.

I chucked the laptop on the ground outside the gate, and clambered out onto the walkway. Back at the entrance to the camp, the doors started to swing again.

I grabbed the edge of the walkway. Please, let them look somewhere else for a minute. Let them not notice the helicopter kicking up dust. The two guards emerging did, of course. I looked down, keeping both hands on the walkway. The gate offered no cover at all. The only thing I had was that they were too far away to be accurate, which wouldn’t last long. I swung over the side and let go of the walkway, no time for getting down gently, not able and not caring enough to stop the gasp that fought its way out when my leg connected with the ground. The shock of the impact ricocheted up through the pulsing know of pain in my shin.

That did it.

I grabbed the laptop by a corner, fighting to keep hold of both it and my AR, and started shooting blindly through the gate, limping backwards, trying not to put any weight on my leg but failing. Failing miserably. Every other step was torture.

Strings of curses bubbled up, and pain, and raging fury too, at the bastards dodging my wild shots on the other side.

“YAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” I shouted, and if they thought I had been firing before…my AR kicked in protest, recoil threatening the shake the gun free from my already shaky grasp. I _dare_ it. My shoulder started aching fiercly. One guy stopped shooting, taking a step back and then another, turning and heading back into the safety for the entrance. That’s right.

“You _better_ run!” I yelled at his back, feeling out of breath but I shouted it anyway.

The other – red mask, elite – kept calm, kept advancing, kept picking off shots that came closer and closer. I nearly lost my hold on the laptop as my shoulder started burning and my hands started shaking. One shot nearly swiping across my cheek, and this time I did let go of the laptop, training and experience be damned as I threw up a hand instinctively. The elite cocked his head, took another step, pulled his rifle a bit higher.

Then his head flipped backward, blood splatter fanning out over the sand around him.

I turned – stumbled, was a better word for it – and Sean was there, rifle in hand, locked on to the spot where the elite had just fallen. Sandy wind tangling in his hair, remains of a snarl curling his upper lip.

“Sean?” I asked, stupidly. The hell was he doing in Saudi Arabia? On the _mission_?

A second guy jumped out and retrieved the laptop. Sean ditched the rifle and reached out for me. When I didn’t do anything but stare, he sighed, swiped out and grabbed my arm anyway.

“Good job, Mike,” he told me, fuzzy feedback from my earpiece overlapping with his voice. “Not bad for the new guy.”

He tugged me to the edge of the helicopter, and I complied. The man's grip was steel, unbreakable. I thought about helping, but then again my leg felt like hell, and I was getting tired. I could feel the muscles shifting under his skin as he hooked his arms under mine, braced himself, and hauled me up.

“All missions…” I started, laying on the floor of the copter. Above my head, the Alpha Protocol guy started shouting things into his radio. Sean stepped over me, grabbed a rifle.

Probably not safe to lay like this. Takeoff was starting. Everything swayed, tilting dizzy. I should sit up.

“All missions,” I tried again. I should sit up. Strap in, or something. “Go…as smoothly, as this?”

“You’re alive, aren’t ya’?” he said curtly.

I suppose I was. That was good.

Data, laptop. Good as well.

Above my head, the other Alpha Protocol guy swapped a handful of bandages for Sean’s rifle.

“Mikey,” Sean said, suddenly crouched down beside me, a knife in hand. He slit a triangular flap in the fabric around my leg. “Gonna patch that up. Try not to die on me, yeah?”

“I’m _fine_ -” I said, and then I couldn’t talk except to choke out some air. The electric pain zapping through my bones ended as soon as it has started, though. It left me trying to remember how to use my mouth.

“Really?” he said, calmly. Several more bursts of pain. “Forget hair. You must be havin’ a bad _everything_ day. And then there’s the shakin’,” he pointed out, and yanked another loop of bandage tight.

“That’s the plane,” I grunted, trying not to get my tongue punctured by my teeth. He tightened another loop, and I could taste the blood.

“Uh _huh_ ,” he said. “One - not a plane. Two, we haven’t taken off yet. Now, are you gonna strap yourself in, or do I have to do everything myself around here?”

We most certainly _were_ flying.

“I’m gonna take a nap,” I said.

He looked like he couldn’t decide between rolling his eyes or smiling.

“I’ll…” he said, and seem to be lost for words for a second. “That’s gonna need some work. I’ll fix it at the safehouse.”

We? I was in enough trouble, already. He paused, seem to expect the argument that I should have made, but I was too tired to debate it. In for a penny. Or something like that.

A nap would be nice.

“All right,” he grumbled, and then I was standing, most my weight on him, and then I was sitting again, straps coming up over my shoulders.

“What?” I asked.

“Get some sleep,” he said firmly. And that I understood. The sand kicked up by the wind and the hum of the rotors stopped napping from happening, but only for a minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live. god has this chapter been through hell and back.


	12. Travel Log: Intercept Shaheed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FILE 168-B 24, recovered from LOCATION 12

In my dreams, dull thudding gunshot sounds. Strange, because, the sound wasn’t the right shape. Then I realized I was awake, or that I’d woken myself up, and there were no gunshots at all. I was staring up at the grey fabric of a car ceiling. The faint rumbly hum of an engine. And then someone was patting my head, and I was falling, and sitting next to an old creek that used to run in the woods behind my house when I was a kid.

_“Wake up, Mikey. We’re here.”_

Everything hurt. Should’ve listened to Mom about…vegetables, or something. Milk? A yacht sailed by on the stream.

_“No, I got him. Take care of the laptop.”_

A splash snaked up around the captain’s shoulders and she pointed it at the cloudy sky.

_“Yeah, of course try to stall Yancy.”_

Someone shook my shoulder.

“Come on, Thorton,” Sean said. The river was gone. I tried to look around for it, but my neck was sore, and besides, I couldn’t remember what I had been looking.

“Good morning,” he continued. Smile wide, but eyes quickly scanning me, up and down. River blue eyes. He reached around me and unbuckled a seatbelt.

“You’re supposed to be made of clouds,” I told him, and when I opened my eyes again, I was laying on the couch. The right side of my pants torn off above the knee. There was a pile of bunched up towels elevating my leg.

Darcy sat a bloody washcloth back in a large, metallic bowl on the coffee table and looked back over his shoulder.

“Welcome back, Mikey,” he said evenly. “How’re you feelin’?”

“Good-” I started, and then pain remembered I existed and I couldn’t talk over the choking noises coming from my mouth. Pieces of gauze were invading and burning the inside of my leg, sending spasms up and down. One hand went tearing at the damp bandage, missing, digging deep scratches around it instead. The other shoving away Sean’s attempts to push me back flat on the sofa.

“Sorry about this,” he said, and with a swift motion that sent a sharp twinge up my neck, snatched and pinned my arm behind my back. When my other hand started in on the soaked strips of gauze, he yanked it away, bracing it awkwardly against the sofa.

Too much blood in my body, pressing on everything. Someone was kicking me in time with my heart beat. My fingers straining without my permission, his thumb making deep indents on my forearm as he struggled to keep hold.

_“Goddamn-”_ I started when another gut-wrenching spasm caught me and the words became mangled vowels.

It seemed like forever before I could force the feeling of a sledgehammer against my skeleton to the back of my head, before the shaking started to subside, before I could before to stand the pressure against the inside of my skin. My eyes were watering. I felt like I was going to throw up.

“Okay,” I said, fighting to keep a waver out of my tone. Fighting to breathe. “Okay, I’m good.”

 “Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah,” I lied.

“Right.” He sounded unconvinced. “I’m gonna get you some Percocet.”

Then he dropped my arms on my stomach, and breezed out of the room.

I laid back down and watched the wicker ceiling fan spin lazily. And when that quickly sent me grabbing the edge of the sofa to stop the world from spinning around, I closed my eyes and worked on keeping the needling pain at bay.

 

The only noise of him coming back in was the sound of pills shaking as he tossed a plain bottle of them at me. Unfortunately, red and maroon purple was beginning to crowd out the few unbruised patches of amber-brown skin on my arms, and everywhere the stairs had hit hurt. I was a little too slow in going to catch it.

It bonked my forehead, and a whole new type of pain ricocheted through my skull.

_“Fuck,”_ I said, with a purposeful glare that didn’t quite cut it.

Darcy knelt in front of the coffee table, busied himself with gauze and gloves and the silver bowl.

“Take one of those and for four hours you can hit your head on whatever ya want,” he said, moving things around.

“And don’t worry-” he added, looking up and smirking at me, “It’s from _your_ medicine cabinet, not mine, so you should be okay. Think you can handle it?”

“I wasn’t worried until just now.”

He stopped sorting things into neat rows on the table, and shook his head. “Yeah, well, don’t be. This is a mission, remember?”

“This was a shitshow,” I said, and he snorted.

“Speakin’ of that, I gotta go talk to Westridge. Take one-” he flicked one finger up sternly- “and gimme fifteen.”

“Hey, wait,” I said, as he pushed a hand against the coffee table, “Little brown book next to the TV. Can you toss – bring it here? I have to do my logs.”

He glanced back at the TV stand, then at me. “Keeping classified info out in the open – that’s a dangerous game, Mikey.”

“It’s not a game, Darcy. Can you just hand it to me?”

He frowned. “Whatever you say,” he said, picking it up.

I took it, the twinge running down from my sore shoulder making the motion sharp and harsh.

“Okay then,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Maybe _do_ take two.”

The tiny bump on my head from the goddamn Percocet flared up.

I held the book tighter, and willed the aggression and frustration into the cover.

“Agent Darcy,” I said, the rounded spine of the cover pressing into my palm, “I have been shot across the shoulder. I have been shot in the shin. I _probably_ have a concussion and we don’t have a goddamn thing to show for it, so, please, pretty please, can you please give me a fucking break!”

He blinked. And I blinked, surprised at how quiet the room seemed now. My ears hurt. My ears hurt, and now they tingled with an unpleasant amount of heat.

“Look, I didn’t-” I said.

He held up his hands again. “I’m gonna stop you there. This is a mission, and I shouldn’t have been pokin’ at you. No apologizin’.”

“I…” I said, faintly feeling like I’d just lost an invisible argument. “I wasn’t going to?”

“Sure you weren’t,” he said, back to smirking. Then he caught himself, and smiled more gently this time.

“I should probably go talk to Westridge. Sit tight for me, all right?”

“Yeah, well,” I said, “fine.”

_Nom de dieu_ , great comeback.

Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“I’ll try not to bleed out while you and Yancy chat about the weather,” I said, sighing internally because that wasn’t any good either.

“Shouldn’t take us long,” he said. “The weather is still terrible. I’ll tell him you said hey.”

I couldn’t twist around to watch him go. A spasm forced me back down the moment I tried. So I talked at the ceiling instead.

“Save me some trouble and tell him I died,” I grumbled.

“Will do!” he said, and then the sound of his footsteps disappeared into the kitchen, leaving only the burbling of the fountain and the faint rush of wind outside.

 

* * *

 

_2/06,_ I wrote, having a hard time keeping the pen on the paper and a slightly harder time ignoring what that might mean for my mission readiness.

_No backup, Yancy said. None. And yet Sean Darcy is in the kitchen right now, talking to him._

_He might actually be upset with me this time._

_Plus the mission today was…bad. The missiles were gone. There, once. Gone now. If I took the camp before the airport then maybe… or maybe didn’t try that stupid Spanish gambit. They wouldn’t have felt like moving the other weapons._

_Got some data, though. And Nasri’s laptop._

The Percocet was starting to kick in. I was losing words. The warm, fuzzy, a-dozen-puffy-blankets sensation looming.

_Don’t know what we’re going to do about Shaheed. Two days. Walking is not good. It’s not as bad as it was but standing is…_

_Yancy is probably going to send me home. Now Sean being here makes sense. Came to get his mission back. How’d he know I was gonna get shot?_

_Darcy, I can see you reading over my shoulder._

“For the unofficial record,” Sean said, leaning on the back of the sofa, “we got a report that the camp might be expecting extra backup. Westridge thought you’d do fine, my buddy Talin and I disagreed. You’re right about backup, though – I’m in as much trouble as _you_ are.”

“Great,” I said, while he grinned.

“We went rogue to pull you outta prison – cheer up, Mikey. As far as the last mission you’ll ever get goes, you coulda done worse.”

“Great,” I said again.

“You take your pills?”

“Regretfully.”

I settled back down on the couch and chucked the log onto the ground.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, looking over the sofa as it landed.

“Regrettable,” I said.

“You’re a linguist, aren’t ya?” He circled around to grab several packs of gauze off the coffee table. “You got your derivational morphology wrong.”

“What do you know about linguistics?”

He laughed, a low, short sound mixing in with the water fountain. “I’m a Wikipedia editor,” he explained. “I know a little about a lot of things.”

“I _knew_ it.”

He looked over at me, expectantly.

“Nothing,” I mumbled, cottony comforter drug hell heat starting its attack on my skin.

“Well,” he continued, with a half-shrug, “as far as linguistics goes, I think ya mean somethin’ like regret _ful_.”

“Can I mean both?”

“Not unless-” he started, then cut himself off. “This is a mission. I should be takin’ care of your leg.”

“Instead of…?”

He shot me a dirty look. “Instead of nothing.”

“Alright, then.”

I sunk down another degree into the sofa. Looked down at my foot to make sure I still had one. I wiggled my toes and instead of pain, I felt only the faint, tingly reminder of it. Meanwhile, he started ripping apart gauze packs, rolling latex gloves on, getting a myriad assortment of plastic tweezer things ready.

Field medicine. I hated it. Almost more than Percocet.

“Regretsome,” I thought out loud.

“Not a word, Mike.”

“It is now. You know,” I added, and shifted over on my side a little, “everyone says Shakespeare invented thousands of words, but it’s not true.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They counted wrong. It has to do with…” I paused, the phrase I needed to describe the reason why disappearing into a foggy void. “Data gathering and field work, I think.”

“Field work,” he echoed, giving me a small, distracted nod as he circled back around to inspect the bandages on my leg.

“Yeah, it’s, uh-” I’d had a point, I knew- “It’s why you have to do good field work. And not get shot. Or you’ll start inventing words.”

No, that wasn’t it. He made an mmhm noise, poked at the bandage and made a face.

 “So,” I tried, pushing myself up on my elbows.

He waved a hand at me sharply without looking up. “Take it easy, Mikey.”

“Fine,” I said.

At least the ceiling fan wasn’t ignoring me. One, two, three rotations. The breeze was nice. My skin felt like someone had put space blankets in it. Miserable, hot, and itchy.

“Mike,” Sean Darcy said, interrupting the quiet.

The fan made another three quick rotations. Looked like one.

“Thorton, do I need to explain what I’m about to do?” he asked.

“No,” I said, after a second’s thinking about it. Pack the wound full of gauze, then let it heal from the inside out back home.

“Good. You ready?”

Home, off the mission. And never gonna get another one.

“Mikey,” he said, waving a blue-gloved hand in front of my face.

“Right, right. Sorry. It’s the drugs,” I said.

“Just say no,” came the immediate deadpan response from his side of the sofa.

“Oh, ha ha,” I said, despite myself. God _damn_ , my skin itched. “Let’s get this over with.”

“That hurts, Mikey,” he said as the fan made another few rotations.

_“I’m_ hurting _you?”_

“Well,” he said, “I just peeled a strip of gauze out of a bullet hole in your leg and you didn’t even _whisper_ a curse, so, yeah. _You’re_ hurting _me_ , here.”

I gave that stupidity the silence it deserved.

Also, although I couldn’t see it, I was pretty sure there was a pillow on my face. I didn’t want to open my mouth, swallow any invisible threads, and die.

“Evan says hello,” Sean said after a couple of minutes of water-fountain noise and not much else. “Clara too.”

I swatted the pillow away, then realized abstractly my arms weren’t moving.

“Isn’t she on a mission?” I asked.

“And…?”

Good point.

I nodded, feeling like my head had been stuck on ball bearings.

“Lotta people still wanna meet you. The new guy who stole Desert Spear.”

“Walked right up and took it.”

“Glad you’re _finally_ admitting it,” he said.

“M’that good. Can steal concepts.”

“They had to have _some_ reason for hirin’ you. Everyone’s got something special.”

He paused, and there was a paper ripping noise.

“Me, for example,” he continued. “I got connections, of _all_ kinds. And I know just about everyone.”

“Didn’t know me for ages,” I pointed out sleepily. The pillow was lurking somewhere but I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

He didn’t say anything else for a few minutes. Which was okay. The pillow had killed me, and was busy stuffing itself into my head. The quiet was warm, and I was okay with that.

Then again if it was quiet things could sneak up on me.

“Now me,” I said, the sounds catching on to one another and holding on. Hard to talk. “Me, I’m an en…eni….”

I couldn’t remember the word. The soothing warmth in my head made me not care.

“Enigma? You’re not an enigma, Mikey. I know several of ‘em, trust me.”

“Languages,” I said. Thinking up a good argument was too hard. “I’m good at them, and accents. And swearing. But you knew that already.”

“I had noticed,” he said dryly.

“Good way to blend in. Get people to trust you.”

“Linguist learnin’ a bunch of languages. I hate to break it to ya, but you’re pretty much the opposite of an enigma.”

“Amgine,” I said automatically, then my eyes opening on their own in surprise. I think that was actually right.

“Another new word for Shakespeare over here.”

“Mm.”

Great way to end a first mission. Babbling and high on the couch.

Not how I wanted things to go.

Better though, I thought idly, than twentieth-percentile-Parker had probably expected.

“Almost done,” he told me.

“Okay,” he said a second later. “You should be good for now.”

I didn’t have the energy to lean up and check it out, and honestly, the couch was soft and nice as it was. I’m sure everything was fine.

“That was fast,” I said, stifling a yawn.

“And you keep on hurting me, Mikey,” he said, over what sounded like things being bunched into trash bags. Probably bloody things, I didn’t much care. “It’s almost been a good half-hour.”

“Oh?”

“Yep.”

“Oh.”

I felt the back of a hand on my forehead, then he pulled one eyelid open, then the other.

“Hey?” I said.

“I think I should stick around,” he said. “Not like I’m not gonna get this mission, anyhow.”

“My house is your house.”

“Actually,” he said cheerfully, “this all belongs to Alpha Protocol. And since I’ve got seniority on ya, _technically_ this is my house.”

“I guess?” I forced an eye back open, expected to be met with _challenging_ or _teasing_ or _flippant._ I wasn’t ready for concern. He was frowning deeply, inspecting several of the larger bruises that slipped out over my collar. Seemed a little startled when his eyes made their way up to mine and found them open.

“In other words,” he said quickly, heading back over to a pile of small plastic grocery bags. “ _I_ get to say my house is your house.”

“Make yourself at home,” he added over his shoulder, just as quickly, and then he was gone down the hallway again.

_Interesting,_ I thought, and then I’m sure I thought something about the mission, but it was mixed up with dreams and darkness and sleep.

 

_PERSONAL LOG - ?/?_

_thought it was still yesterday but apparently its not_

_everything hurts. sean keeps waking me up every four hours_

_still nothing from yancy_

 

The next time I woke myself up. Or at least, I thought I had. But the air in the house felt strange, like someone should be yelling but wasn’t.

The fountain was still bubbling. Good. It wasn’t the TV; that wasn’t beeping. Or my phone. Judging by the weak sunlight splayed across the floor, too early for prayers. No car horns or traffic noises outside.

That was it.

There wasn’t _enough_ noise.

And not a single usable weapon anywhere near me.

I was about to crawl my way to one, when there came the sound of light footsteps in the hallway, and I went back to feigning sleep.

Someone huffed air out of their nose, and leaned against the back of the couch. _Sean,_ I thought, and-

“I don’t get it,” he said quietly, sounding more like he was thinking out loud than actually talking. Even in four words, his voice braided with a tension I didn’t understand.

I peeked at him, meant to ask _Don’t get what?_

“Is that my shirt?” I found myself asking instead.

He crossed his arms, still didn’t look at me. It _was_ mine. Or at least one of the ones Alpha Protocol gave me. Plain white long sleeve, buttons all neatly done. Without the padded holsters, his shoulder looked a lot narrower. It didn’t fit him very well, and yet.

“You bled all over mine,” he explained, voice still tense, “and I gotta get through airport security, so-”

“Wait, what?” I asked.

“Don’t pretend like you’re gonna miss me, Mikey.”

“You’re _leaving?_ But-”

A hundred questions formed and unformed. Most of them whys.

“Shaheed’s landing _tomorrow_.”

“Yep,” he said, biting into the word.

“Okay,” I said slowly, “Yancy is upset about the whole ‘backup’ thing. But you’re the closest agent-”

“Actually,” he said, staring up at the ceiling, “you’re the closest agent. And it _is_ your mission.”

“My mission,” I repeated.

He continued to read the ceiling popcorn.

“Uh, Sean? Wanna maybe explain what that means?”

“Whatdya _think_ it means?”

“It sounds like you’re telling me I’m still on this op. That it’s still _only_ me on this op.”

He checked his shoes quickly.

“That’s _not_ what you’re telling me, though. Right?” I asked. “Because that wouldn’t make sense. That would be…”

Trying to stealth my way through the airfield, getting through any guards Shaheed had? Getting him out alive would be out of the question. Getting to him at all was going to be...

“A bad idea,” I finished. An understatement. A massive fucking understatement.

“Yep,” he said again, a lot softer.

There was the right way to respond to such a thing. I didn’t know what it was, though.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Join the club.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He’ll wanna talk to you himself. I hung up on him. He’ll probably call you back sooner or later.”

“Great.”

A moment passed, then he uncrossed his arms, flipped around. Grasped my shoulder and finally looked at me. His features were curiously blank, pointedly neutral.

“Yancy can’t suspend me, not while Desert Spear is on. He can’t afford to. So I’ll getcha what help I can when I’m back at base. Other than that, I…”

The neutrality looked like it might break. He bit the inside of his lip while he struggled to find something to say that wasn’t _I’m sorry._

I knew the feeling.

I was pretty sorry too, but we had a mission, and if there wasn’t time for indulging in hurt feelings later, well, then there wouldn’t be time for it.

“Yancy wants this mission to succeed,” I reminded him, and he kept eyes that were still full of an apology fastened on mine. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t send you, but if he’s just sending me, then I’m willing to bet he’s got a plan.”

“You sure?” he asked lightly. “I know he’s family and all, but sometimes family can screw you over the worst, and this bet could cost you a little more than lunch money.”

“You make a habit of betting against me,” I told him, the smile coming naturally, “we’re not gonna be friends for very long.”

I went to help his hand off my shoulder, but the moment I touched it, he laced his fingers around mine and squeezed.

“Hey. Do me a favor,” he said, serious, staring straight at me. “Make sure you _do_ win this one.”

Then he untangled his hand, and pointed a thumb over his shoulder.

“Now, I really gotta run. Not lookin’ to lose my job today. I’ll walk myself out,” he said, and didn’t look back.

 

* * *

 

_PERSONAL LOG – 2/07_

_So._

_I need to be more careful what I wish for. I wanted action and now I’ve got it. The trick is surviving the action. I’d be lying if I said I had a plan to do that yet._

_Sean was busy this morning. Or yesterday night. Whichever it was. Did some rough analysis on some of the bug transcripts. Stuff about the guard’s schedules, dynamics, useful. As useful as it can be, given that I’m going to be hopping around, basically. The place is huge. He also sketched out a bunch of possible approaches for the mission tomorrow. They were pretty good. Would have been better if he hadn’t kept pointing that out in the margins. Mina, of course, disagreed with all his suggestions. She was on comms with me for most the day, working. Soon as Sean got back to base, he joined us. Called us both idiots, me for trying to scale cliffs to get into the airport on the first go round, Mina for letting me. He’s got – again with this guy – a contact at the airport who will turn a blind eye to an extra passenger in the back of a supply truck. Good, cause walking in was going to hurt._

_Mina had to leave eventually to work on the data a little while ago. She and Parker have gotten the sole responsibility of analyzing it. Sean’s pissed about being cut out of the loop. Honestly, I am too. It’s not like I want to do analysis, but I’ve only got until tomorrow evening to get a handle on this situation. And if there was any day for being stuck inside doing analysis, it was today._ _Not enough time to do anything else big. Too much time to keep going over the small stuff._

_Might as well get some sleep. If my PDA doesn’t wake me up with news, the damn TV will._

_PERSONAL LOG – 2/08_

_The big day. T-minus about six hours. Parker’s still going through what data we have, but we’ve gotten some mission-valuable intel. First and foremost, the missiles are going to be at the airport, with Shaheed. Downside – we have no idea where specifically. The precise location is one of those documents we missed, and since Parker can’t call me himself (why?) to complain, he’s taking it out on Mina._

_I asked her to remind Parker it was either the documents, or two agents. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure which he’ll find more important._

_Anyway, the missiles are going to be there. Hell, they might have already arrived._

_~~Second, we know~~ _ ~~~~

_Okay, there’s no good way to spin this. We’re flying blind, in their home turf. They have the numbers; we have me, and I’m not exactly at my best right now. We can’t afford to lose; they can._

_But we can do this._

_Yancy wouldn’t have sent me if he didn’t think I could._

_I won’t let him down. I won’t let my country down._

_If I pull this off – when I pull this off – I’m going to sleep for a week. And next time I decide I wanna be out in the field, gonna think twice. Think twice, and then do it anyway._

_Here goes nothing!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live


	13. AP-6.12-SA3/00X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the final showdown between Alpha Protocol and Al-Samad begins

\------------------------

Friday, 2/08, 17:36

Al-Samad Airfield

East of Jizan, Saudi Arabia

\------------------------

The airport was deserted, and it shouldn’t have been.

“Get to the tower,” Yancy had ordered.

So I had, but no one was there except a dead guy with a hole in his head.

If I’d been more conscious I probably would have been afraid, but I was having a hard enough time pushing away the double vision and dizziness that came hand in hand with whatever was in the fucked up tranq and half-the-meds-in-the-house concoction Yancy had me inject my leg with. It felt like I was at a seaport, on a boat, rather than at an airport, and under those conditions, the corpse at my feet was unimportant. The computer he’d been at was unlocked, thankfully, and I rifled through it. Schematics, schedules, the bug…and marked map.

_Oh, hell_.

The map, of the cliffs and trails immediately outside the airport, seemed so much bigger than the small display.

“The missiles,” I reported, dutifully, “aren’t anywhere near the runway. Looks like they’re being held in a munitions depot in the mountains.”

“Checking the satellite imagery now…” Yancy said. “Looks like there’s a small trail that leads to the rear of the depot. Marking it on your PDA.”

“On it,” I said, and tripped over the body almost immediately.

 “Mike?”

“I’m okay,” I said, and after the latest wave of dizzy unsteadiness passed, I pushed myself up.

 

* * *

 

Al-Samad. When they don’t have any use for something, they destroy it. The mountains were tribute to that. Wrecked planes, torn twisted wings, an engine so big I could walk through it, all strewn about. Rusting.  All partially buried by sand and dirt. The place where planes go to die.

The depot, more of a warehouse, lay slightly beyond the graveyard. It was massive, and it was overstaffed. The entire airport had withdrawn here, I think. Guards kept appearing in open doorways, descending from rooftops, walking out from passages in the cliffs you wouldn’t have noticed even if you were standing next to them. Those passages were golden, though. Gave me a place to duck out of sight, gave me a place to sit and bite down on the nausea before I started out again, gave me a way to make it through the complex tangle of buildings that sat in the space in front of the weapons depot. If the missiles were here, Shaheed would be here. Getting spotted wasn’t an option.

 

* * *

 

The depot was only some thirty meters from the path, but it took a good half hour to make it over a door that was unguarded, a thin door set in the back, almost pressed against the cliff face. It was so close to the rocks, it could hardly open.

Inside was a small monitoring station within the warehouse. Camera feeds from the surrounding areas played soundlessly on security screens. On one…

Several trucks lurched into motion outside, on a dirt road. In the back of a truck near the rear – the Halbech logo, a dull blue in the sun, on the corner of an otherwise unfamiliar looking ground-to-air missile launcher.

“Got a visual on the missiles,” I told Yancy. “Looks like they’re being loaded on a convoy outside the warehouse.”

“You need to get to it before they roll out,” he said brusquely.

According to the internal feeds of the warehouse, there were only two guys left stationed inside. Good. We no longer had time for a protracted stealth approach. Shoot-to-kill, and get moving.

“Once they’re mobile,” he added, “our job gets a lot harder.”

“Yeah, I know,” I couldn’t stop myself from snapping back.“On it.”

Even with the silencer, the noise from my first two shots echoed painfully through the warehouse. The alarm was in the monitoring station with me, so no danger there. With luck, the noise of the convoy would keep anyone outside distracted. I’d know in a minute, at any rate.

The second guard came, predictably, for the alarm. He opened the door, and ran directly into my pistol.

I didn’t notice the two guards in the walkways above until it was too late. They’d waited patiently until I was halfway through the warehouse, winding my way between two shipping containers, to start shooting. The first silenced shot pinged past my head and punched a neat hole in the metal. They were shooting from either side.

_Get down_.

Unless they were directly above me, that should eliminate their angle. I crawled along the thin gap between the shipping containers, getting ready to shoot the moment I was free. Where were their footsteps? Where were the walkways?

Pointless. They were silent now, no way to tell.

Well, I was due for some good luck about now.

I took a deep breath, grabbed my pistol, and came out shooting. High to my right, one guard hit the deck instinctively. He, though, did not have a shipping container to cover him, only the single rail of the walkway, and it didn’t do him any good.

Shots made craters in the concrete floor next to me. I spun, firing in an arc, and caught the second guard in the arm as he was firing. His shot went through the roof instead of through my heart, a blade of sunlight cutting in and showing just how much dust was in the air. He tried to raise his own pistol one more time, but I was faster.

Rumbling vibrations carried through the floor. The convoy. The guards no longer a problem, I bolted across the warehouse, out the door, and stopped dead, dropping behind a pile of crates.

_Shaheed_.

Convoy trucks ambled slowly by where he stood, in front of the blocky squat Stryker assault tank, surrounded by guards. The last of the missile launchers moved past him, and his words drifted across the road.

“…and you have heard nothing from the control tower?” he asked.

Beside him, a tall, bulky bald man wearing a woefully inadequate vest instead of armor grunted. “No.”

A smaller guard, who kept shooting nervous glances at the bald guy, shook his head as well. “No, Sheikh…but your plane is prepped and ready for takeoff, as you asked.”

“It’s Shaheed,” I reported in a whisper. “Looks like he’s got a whole lot of ugly with ‘em,” I centered my pistol on said ugly’s head, then shifted to Shaheed. Clear shot. The sun glinted off his darkened sunglasses, both lenses free from dust. In this climate, he must take time to clean them regularly.

Had he been wearing them the evening of Flight 6133? If he’d been there, he would have needed to. The fireball would have been…

_Alive, if possible_ , I reminded myself.

Shaheed toyed with one of the many ostentatious rings on his fingers.

“Something is wrong…” The smaller guard started at him, fidgeting. Something _was_ wrong, of course. I tightened my grip on the pistol.

“Have our men come to meet the trucks at the checkpoint, with the assault vehicles,” Shaheed instructed.

“At once, Sheikh,” the guard said, darting away.

Shaheed was heading for the open back hatch on the Stryker. Sauntering. We’d lose him in a second. “Should I take the sho-”

“No,” Westridge practically shouted, cutting me off almost before I finished asking. “If we do that, we lose the missiles.”

Shaheed barked one more order from the back to the balding man, who nodded, and hopped on a run-down, rusty bike, and took off.

“But if you can still intercept the convoy,” Yancy said, “we have a chance.”

“Dammit, Yancy” I said, under my breath. The hatch on the Stryker swung closed, and it shuddered into motion along the path the convoy had just taken.

“The convoy’s already headed out,” I added, louder.

He didn’t sound flustered in the least. “The road the convoy’s on snakes through the mountains – if you use the foot trails and move fast, you may be able to catch it at the checkpoint.”

“Great day for a jog.” I let myself have the brief sarcasm, and then one small moment of self-pity – and then I edged around the crate, putting a bullet in the final lookout.

 

* * *

 

_Run. Duck. Jump._

_A lookout is below, balancing on an outcropping of rock below. Drop down, grab him, knock him off the edge, keep moving. Shitshitshit. Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Now, get back up on the footpath._

I spared a glance back. Dust clouds in the distance, churned up by the convoy, marked where the road winded. Yancy wasn’t kidding.

“Running out of time, Mike…” he warned, as if I wasn’t trying my damndest to move.

 “I’m _on_ it,” I said. Keep. Moving. Don’t look down, not over the edge at the thirty-foot drop to the rock strewn base of the jagged canyon walls. Don’t look at those pebbles careening over the edge, landing on top of the guard’s body.

“Mike,” Yancy said, an even more urgent warning note in his voice.

Squeeze between the fallen rocks, ignore the burgeoning soreness from my shin, there is a guard ahead, and he doesn’t see you, so nail him before he does.

“Lot of ground to cover here, I’ll _get_ there.”

Goddamn- duck and roll, rocks are falling. Rumbling from nearby dislodging bits of mountain, the noise of the convoy bouncing around, getting closer.

Nothing to do but keep running. The mechanical grumbling of the convoy got louder and louder, and then the path dropped away steeply, ending in a wooden bridge with over a tamped down dirt road. A discarded motorbike lay behind a stack of Halbech emblazoned metal crates at the other end. The bald vest guy stood in the middle, sweeping the area with a shining gold assault rifle. I skidded to a stop at the start of the bridge, and dove out of the way behind a stray boulder, a hailstorm of bullets splattering across it.

“It’s Shaheed’s second in command,” I said. This had to be the checkpoint. On the road, concrete barriers separated more stacks of crates, many also stamped with Halbech logos. Some fifty, sixty meters down the road, a wooden truss bridge extended over a sharp drop in the canyon floor. An open solid metal gate, hooked up to a bulky generator, sat at the end of the bridge.

The checkpoint.

Lieutenant Vest kept shooting at me, approaching slowly. On the road, two guards tore in on bikes, spraying pebbles and sand everywhere as they cut arcs in the road, stopping and pulling rifles free.

“And he’s brought friends,” I added grimly.

I brought a grenade, right? Grab it, before they get free of their bikes. Wait for Lt. Vest to stop for a reload…and drop it over the edge. He still had friends, but now, those friends had significantly fewer arms. They rolled in the dirt, screeching, and it didn’t give Vest a moment’s pause. _Damn_ it.

“They’re probably here to meet up with the convoy,” Yancy said. “You need to take them out, now.”

Vest’s shots were getting even closer. I fired blindly back, ducking out of cover. Come on, Michael. The dust in the distance wasn’t ‘in the distance’ anymore.

“The trucks’ll be here any minute,” Yancy pointed out. The shots stopped. I stayed put. They resumed, more fiercely than before. No grenades, two tranqs – not that I can waste them on a blind shot at anyone who isn’t Shaheed – backed into a corner, the convoy on the way. Come on. _Think_.

“Don’t know if he knows you’re coming,” Yancy chattered on. The rate of fire was dying now. Maybe if I could lure Vest over here…? “If you can get behind to his position-”

I shut the sound off. If he was going to tell me shit I already knew, he was free too. I was done listening for the moment.

Now. As for Vest.

The metallic clunking and chugging of engines was clear now, even over Vest’s constant shooting. I just needed to distract him for a moment. Just a second. The grenade had done nothing. The bridge was vibrating, now. The convoy would be under it, past it, through the open gate any second now. And I had an idea, but wow, was it a bad one.

I grabbed my Hamilton lightly, and then slung it out from behind the crate. It skittered toward the middle of the bridge. Dust and smoke and the smell of burning oil wafted beyond the bend in the road. _One_.

“I surrender!” I shouted, peeking out when the shooting stopped. Didn’t put my hands up, though, those were tight on the side of the boulder. _Two_.

The man, who hadn’t even bothered to get behind cover himself, lowered his own rifle slightly and sidled over to mine. He leaned over, barely, and pulled his foot back a little, getting ready to what? Kick it off the bridge? Then he froze, looking back over his shoulder at the road. At the emerging convoy.

_Go._

I dashed out from the behind the boulder. He kicked the rifle while turning and bringing his back up. We collided against the railing, his shots so close to my side I swear I could feel the shockwave, but still not close enough. His defiant shout was lost in the rising cacophony from the convoy. He cracked an elbow against my face. I stumbled back, blinking, hand reaching for my bleeding nose without permission, and he took the chance to center his rifle on my chest, sneering.

I moved without thinking.

The barrel of the gun in both my hands, throwing all my weight behind a last shove, almost jumping on him. The sound of shots, but I couldn’t feel anything. We hit the rail, his footing gone, teetering, my hands and his both fused with the rifle. The first truck, one loaded with a missile launcher, rolled under the bridge, and I was out of time, so I tore one hand off the gun, grabbed a failing foot, and pushed. His hands slipped a little, and he let go of his gun, and he dropped off the edge. The grill of Shaheed’s Stryker impacted messily with the body, and it was tossed out of the way, blood squirting out over the road.

I winced, and like that, thinking returned. _The gate._

I looked down at the gold-plated AR in my hands, then up at the generator attached to the gate.

_Here’s to hoping_ , I thought, and shot. The generator gave a puff of smoke and sparks, and the gate shut. The convoy rolled to a stop, truck doors opening.

Then the shouting of Shaheed’s guys in the convoy started.

I looked over myself quickly. Except for the blood struggling down from my nose, nothing out of place. I turn Yancy back on, and he was still talking.

“-ke, first priority is the Stryker,” he said.

No, the two guards equipped with missile launchers were the first priority. They were stumbling out of the driver’s side of the trucks. The wind carried their muted curses.

Time to get off the bridge, before they got their bearings.

I had one foot still on it when the Stryker opened fire, ignored its own friendlies, brought the brought the flaming wreckage of the bridge down on the heads of the two guards. I jumped, fast, dive rolled and crashed into the side of the canyon but at least I didn’t go down with the bridge.

The turret made ominous clicking noises as it rotated toward me. I stumbled back along the ground, reaching a fold in the cliff wall the second before the turret sent another missile my way.

I was so close, though. The Halbech gear was right there, Shaheed was right there.

“Yancy,” I asked, “I’m stuck in cover. Any ideas?”

He said nothing. Maybe that was for the best.

If I could stay low, maybe I could make it down the sloping path to the ground. The body of one of the guards was sticking out of the rubble, hand still wrapped around his missile launcher.

That’d do.

_If_ I could get to it. The time between missile reloads was short. Oh so very short. But Shaheed was _right there._

The whistle of another incoming missile. I braced myself, not that it helped. I would have fallen over, if the gap in the cliff had been much wider.

I tried to think, came up with nothing. Seven seconds later, the next missile followed.

Overthinking wasn’t going to get me through this.

So I let go, instead. Pushed aside the _20 th percentile_ and images of Flight 6133 crying parents, and when the next blast rocked the crevasse, I was ready.

Don’t count the seconds. Just go.

Look out for the falling beam. Four seco – don’t. There’s the launcher. Get it, don’t stop, and go.

Two seconds. Don’t trip on the rubble. One.

There, a concrete barrier.

I hit the deck.

The missile cleared the barrier by a fraction of an inch. Somewhere behind me, it knocked chunks out of the cliffs.

_Gotcha, bastard_.

I locked on to the Stryker with the launcher. I couldn’t kill it, not with one shot. But I had a better idea, now that I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t busy worrying about things like ‘chances of success’ or ‘civilians’.

I fired at the front. Smoke began drifting from it. I’d hit something important, then. Didn’t matter. They were distracted. I closed the distance between the Stryker and I, in those precious few seconds when smoke from both the tank and the missile shot would make getting a visual on me difficult. Then I sprinted past it, heading for the trucks. Or, more specifically, the Halbech missiles.

The smoke cleared. I vaulted into the back of the truck farthest from the Stryker. The guys in the tank were probably searching their for me. Only the small twinge from my shin, and the taste of blood from my nose reminded me I was _supposed_ to feel like shit right now.

I grinned instead, and checked the launcher for power. Yup. The system had its own internal source. Good. I hadn’t thought about that before I ran over here, and it would have put a damper on my mood.

“Time to use,” I said out loud, “some Halbech tech to resolve this problem.”

After all, when you think about it, it really was their problem to begin with.

 

_\----------------------_

_Now_

_4/24/08_

_Interrogation Room A_

_\----------------------_

_“So…” Leland surmised. “You thought the death of one terrorist leader would somehow fix the world.”_

_Had I? It hadn’t ended up mattering, either way. Leland leaned forward, emphasizing each word, tongue flicking of his teeth, like a snake. I wanted to rip it out. If I looked at him for another minute, I would._

_Breathe. There would be a reckoning. He would pay for what he’d done. I would make him._

_He smiled in the silence._

_“There’s always one thing I wanted to know – after you killed Shaheed…why you did what you did next.”_

_He leaned back, flicked his fingers towards the screen. Something flashed on them, something unimportant, compared to the slip he’d just made._ I _didn’t kill Shaheed. Breathing was easier. Leland was a fool._

_“Were you trying to find out what happened to your friends?”_

_He slid his open hands across the table, imitating innocent confusion, and breathing was hard again. It would be so simple, to grab them, snap his wrist._

_Not now. Not yet. There will be a reckoning. He was a fool._

_“Or were you after me?”_

_He was a fool. Staring at me, deciphering, pausing. Keeping those hands within reach. He thought he was a predator. It amused him to think it was me going after him, instead of the other way around._

_“Trying to bring down Halbech, perhaps?”_

_He would find out, soon enough._

_“…or maybe you were just cornered…”_

_I wasn’t going to answer. Wasn’t going to help him. He rose from his chair, leaned over aggressively._

_“…looking for a way out.”_

\------------------------ 

Then

2/08/08, 18:36

Outside Al-Samad Base

\------------------------

Smoke and fire, everywhere. Someone was coughing, me? I was shaking with the force of getting dust from my lungs.

Awareness filtered in slowly. Metal fragments everywhere. A truck, flipped on its side, one stiff breeze away from falling over and crushing my legs. That got me up.

The plan…worked better than I expected. The Stryker sat, smoke billowing from beneath bent and warped plates. The missile launcher itself was upside-down beside the truck. I was on the ground, thrown by the force, I suppose.

“I got it,” I said, shocked by how…drained I sounded. I sounded like someone else entirely was reporting in, borrowing my voice. It did not sound like someone who’d just blown up a tank, with a stolen missile launcher, in the middle of a desert covert op.

“If Shaheed’s inside…” I tried again, a cough breaking up my attempt. “…his head’s _got_ to be ringing by now.”

There. That sounded better.

“Good job, Mike,” Yancy allowed, sound coming from far away. “Now… check to see if Shaheed’s still breathing.”

“And be careful,” he added sternly, a heartbeat later.

I suppose I deserved that.

The hatch on the Stryker popped open as I loaded my last two tranqs into my pistol. Shaheed tumbled out, coughing. A second guard stumbled out behind him, looked at me, and ran for the hills.

I let him. Shaheed was the priority now.

Shaheed rolled around on the ground, flames licking over his long cotton outfit. He stopped, propping himself up to look when my shadow fell across him.

His glasses were shattered. Through the lense-less frames, two equally brown eyes stared in disbelief. That answers that.

“Is…” he choked out, standing, torn robe doing a poor job of concealing long, bloody gashes, “the blood on your hands not enough?”

On _my_ hands? The fucking- No. I had business here.

“On behalf of the American government,” I said, “I am here to take you into custody, Shaheed.”

“Behalf of America?” he asked incredulously. “America answers only to its wealth.”

“Coming from one of the richest men in the Middle East and son of a privileged family, that seems…” _Laughable? Hypocritical?_ “…ironic.”

“You are here because American’s greed demands it. Your country sleeps at Halbech’s feet, like a dog, hungry for its weapons.”

Images of Flight 6133 threatened to surface. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a debate.

“Save the preaching – I’m here for the missiles you stole.”

“The missiles I stole?” He nearly fell over. “They shipped them to me – then brand me a thief?”

“I was ordered to recover missiles that were stolen from Halbech – except now you’re telling me they were sold to you,” I said, sarcastically.

He shrugged. “So? There is no difference.”

“There’s a huge difference!” Why was I arguing this with him? My voice was rising, despite myself, images of the dead, being pulled from smoldering wreckage, reflected in his eyes. “And everyone who died on that airliner would agree! Because that means there’s two murderers, not one.”

Families, funerals on the news. I wanted to shake him. But…there was something in his eyes…not fear, not righteousness. Something…indignant. A nagging thought tugged at my attention.

_Those missiles_ , it said, _should have been well guarded. Should have been protected. Untouchable._

“Look,” I started, the nagging little though cutting some of the fury out of my tone, distracting me.

Mistakes happen. Guards don’t get enough sleep. Codes aren’t changed when they should be. Top secret, high tech missiles under lockdown in the heart of the American homeland get spirited away.

_No, they don’t_ , the thought pointed out. _You steal a laptop, you steal a gun. Information. But not that._

“I’m…” If he was lying, then we got more intel to use against him. If he wasn’t…if he wasn’t, Alpha Protocol needed to know, right now. There was no reason to dig a little deeper.

“I’m…not looking to shoot you in the head right now – if you have something you think I should know, I’m listening,” I said, haltingly.

“So you may use it against me in your courts? I think not,” he said, shaking his head.

“I’m serious,” I told him. “If Halbech’s engaged in weapon trafficking, they’re going to court along with you.”

It wasn’t a _complete_ lie. _If_ Halbech had under-the-table dealings with terrorists, there would be hell to pay. But they didn’t. They didn’t send Al-Samad those missiles. They couldn’t have.

The nagging thought got a little louder, drew my attention to the number of Halbech logos on crates at the checkpoint.

_It isn’t impossible,_ it reminded. _It’s happened before._

“You are Halbech’s agent in this. Why would you allow such a thing?” He barked the words out, voice rough from coughing, but still sharp, and accusing. Had he really bought his own line?

“I don’t _work_ for _Halbech._ ”

_Your cover does._

“Ah…and neither did I. A comforting thought, but it is a lie.” His glare softened, into something like pity. “You already know something is wrong. The data you found in the detention cells of our camp -  that was not ‘stolen’ missile data, that was _given_ to us.”

_The dates on the data – all wrong. Where, even, did the data come from? Did they steal that, too?_

“You have two choices – you can believe me…”

_How did they get the missiles?_

“…or kill me.”

Broken bodies, missing limbs, being pulled out of toppled seats and caved-in metal. Metal destroyed with stolen American missiles.

“Halbech uses you, but you do not see their influence – you will, trust me in this.”

I…this was ridiculous. I’d wondered how the missiles got out to Al-Samad, but this was beyond unbelievable.

_Was it really?_

Or was it the oldest trick in the book? Influential people doing things they shouldn’t.

Killing people, though?

Although…sending Al-Samad the missiles…maybe they didn’t know. Didn’t think it would come to that. Made a mistake.

In fact, maybe they were only involved in some low-grade shit, smuggling guns, Shaheed could only be telling part of the truth. The missiles were probably stolen. The missiles _were_ stolen.

They might not have been.

If it was true…if…Yancy wasn’t saying anything but he was probably having a fit. This was bad. This was _really_ bad.

Shaheed swayed, blood pooling from his multiple wounds. He wouldn’t be standing much longer.

“I…” I started, when my doubts got fed up of being on the back burner and took over. “I believe you.”

And when I said it, holy fuck, I believed him. I believed this sonofabitch, who shot down Flight 6133, I was standing here in front of him believing his bullshit about Halbech. Not all of it. But enough of it.

“Evidence would help,” I prompted him. I believed Shaheed. I couldn’t believe myself. This was bad.

“The missiles are not enough?” He held his hands out, regaining his balance, then gave up, and sat down in the dust. “Perhaps not. I have other information, and I can obtain more.”

He’d gotten the wrong idea. I believed him, sure. But only about Halbech. Barely.

“You mean _if_ I let you go,” I corrected. “No chance.”

“I give you my word. If you know anything about me, you know I honor a promise when given.”

In comparison, Halbech selling missiles to Al-Samad sounded downright logical. Shaheed, honorable? It was too insulting to be funny.

“When you see Halbech for what it is, I will come back and speak to you again – I will not hide. And I will bring proof.”

Laughable. Alpha Protocol would handle Halbech – if Halbech needed handling.

“There’s no way I’m letting the leader of Al-Samad go,” I said. “I’m bringing you in, Shaheed. I know you have a PDA on you. Give it here.”

He pulled it free after a moment’s pause, smiling absurdly. “You want it? Here, take it. It won’t help you – you are already damned, you and your Halbech masters.”

I reached down to grab his arm, then thought better of it. I’d need to do some first-aid work first, if he was going to survive long enough for extraction. The dopey smile on his face was testament to how out of it he was rapidly becoming. Hell, maybe the Halbech stuff was just a delusional daydream.

But I didn’t think so.

“Save your story for someone who will listen, there’s no way in hell I’m letting you get away.”

He laughed, leaning backwards into it, grinning up at the sky.

“I did not,” he spluttered, “ _expect_ to get away.”

“What?”

“Not all the missiles were on the convoy,” he managed, through bursts of detached giggles. Yeah, he was really out of it. “You should see the last one on the horizon now. _This_ is the gift Halbech brings to the world.”

_Shit_. If he had a cell out there, somewhere, about to rain hell, if we missed something in the data…

_“Yancy,”_ I said. We needed to get eyes on the sky. We couldn’t afford another Flight 6133. Not ever.

“You want the missiles?” Shaheed continued, laying back on the ground. “All you must do is wait.”

_“Westridge!”_

Static. Then he said, detached, without urgency, without seeming like he’d heard anything at all, “Mike?”

“I’m here,” I said, quickly. “Listen, I…dealt with Shaheed, but-”

“The missiles?” He wasn’t listening. He _had_ to listen.

“I’ve disabled the convoy. Actually-"

"How many did we get?"

"I haven’t _confirmed_ how many missiles, but-”

“Your first priority is…”

Static and strange screeching noises blasted out whatever he’d been trying to say.

“Westridge?” On the ground Shaheed, laughed quietly. “Yancy, do you read me?”

_Fuck_. I needed to contact them, had to get them looking out for-

My PDA buzzed wildly in my pocket, and Mina’s muffled voice came through without warning.

“Mike! Get out of there!”

“Mina?” I asked, digging it free, about to look at it, when over my shoulder I heard an even more alarming sound. A kind of deep rumbling, and a whistling. A kind of roaring, from the sky.

“I’m tracking multiple missiles homing in on your coordinates – get out of there!”

“What the hell…?” I said, over top of her warning. I blankly registered that the three dark shapes cutting a line of smoke across the sky were probably, in fact, missiles. It didn’t seem real…

Until I looked down at Shaheed, and saw him tracking their motion. It clicked.

There wasn’t time to run far enough, but I bolted anyway, making it almost to the bridge before there was a noise like the world was being ripped apart, and everything went white, and then everything faded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live


	14. ALPHA PROTOCOL.EXE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for someone to update the old résumé.

_Mike._

Someone hurt. It wasn’t me.

_Come on, Mike, talk to me._

Hm. Maybe it was me. I couldn’t move. Something was burning. Fire and smoke.

_Thorton!_

No…I _could_ move. At the very least, I had things I knew from experience were used to moving around. An arm, for example. It pushed some dirt around. I tried a foot. Someone let out a choked gasp. My…leg bone? It felt like glass, broken glass.

Huh. So it was me, who was hurting.

“ _Michael?_ ”

Oh. Someone was talking. Not very interesting. More interesting – I was certain I’d been looking at the sky, yet right now, I was breathing in dirt, tasting it. When did someone swap the sky and the ground? How?

“ _Mike, can you hear me?”_

Mina. The word popped into my head. But what was a Mina? And why did I care?

_“Mike…?”_   The talking said again, sounding very small, and unsure, and it trailed off.

Hm. There was something there. Something more important than dirt and sky. Though, I was sick of having dirt in my mouth. I pushed my head up a little.

The part of me that had offered up the word Mina offered another one. Missiles?

Missiles. Mina. I looked around the sky-ground, dizzy. A few feet away a thin rectangle – PDA, my brain offered again – played a fuzzy image of a person with maroon hair, looking concerned.

Mina, I thought firmly. Things started to make sense again. Missiles. Someone had…or…I couldn’t tell if the stuff around me was smoke or dust or air.

_There was a missile strike_ , my brain said, impatient now.

_Answer her_ , it added.

I reached out with one hand and grabbed the PDA.

“Yeah?” I said. Or, rather, I tried to say. I had to cough my way through a good deal of dust and dirt.

The expression on the face of the Mina – just Mina – relaxed instantly into a picture of relief. Just as quickly, it morphed back to pure tension.

“You’re alive, thank god! You need to get out of there – now.”

I wanted to put my head back down. The more conscious I got, the harder it was to push aside the pain. Getting myself into a sitting position felt like dragging every ounce of me over sandpaper made of metal.

“M’on it.” The word sounded slurred together, slightly. Shock, or concussion? I couldn’t remember anything about medicine, right now. I was still only fairly confident the ground was in the right place.

Mina would know.

“S'wrong?” I asked.

“You’re in danger,” she said, slowly, and clearly, emphasizing every word with care and precision, like a…I don’t know, and handler whose agent was out of it. “You need to get out of Saudi Arabia.”

Missiles. _Halbech_. My head ached, was numb, no, ached.

“But Halbech…the missiles…” I tried. There was something important there. “Shaheed…”

I twisted around, spotted a body, neck at a right angle, blood tamping the dust down around it. Wha?

“Shaheed’s dead?” I asked. I don’t know why. He was, it was clear.

“Mike, Halbech is the one that sent the missiles to your location.” Still careful. Still slow. It didn’t make a difference. The idea hit hard. Breathing was hard. Halbech. Didn’t make sense.

“I think they wanted to erase the evidence of the missiles entirely…and you along with it,” she added, gently.

Evidence. There was something important about that, too. I shook my head. It hurt like hell.

“Great…so now I'm evidence? How…” I focused through the hellstorm wrecking its way around my skull. “How'd they...how...to?”

“That’s the other problem – I think they have someone inside Alpha Protocol…and whoever it is fed them the coordinates for the missiles strike.”

A traitor? Inside Alpha Protocol?

They tried to kill me. They tried to _kill_ me. A traitor wanted me dead. Sluggish anger churned underneath the layer of pain, gave up after a minute. Traitor, Halbech, mmhm. Yes. This thing. No. I tried to pay attention. They wanted me dead.

“S'there a way to track down who…" I said. "Who had access to my coor- coor-”

The head hurt so bad the world was starting to blur out.

“Coordinates?” she asked. “Not cleanly, no. But it had to be someone involved in Operation Desert Spear.”

A traitor – a coworker – wanted me dead. A short list. Better for it to be shorter.

“Any other facts you can give me?” I asked.

It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Someone at home wanted me dead. I closed my eyes. The world hurt to look at.

“If I knew more, I’d share,” she assured me. “No one knows I’m talking to you right now.”

Something else occurred to me, floated through my head like smoke. Or maybe that was actual smoke. “S’that why you cut Yancy off when…when the missiles were detected?”

“There wasn’t time to ask for permission,” she protested. “As soon as I detected the missiles, I interrupted the call – I don’t think he even knows I did it.”

The weak grasp I had on the order of things was coming loose. The dirt clods were starting to look like clouds again.

_Get out of there Mike_ was sounding good

“Fine. So I need t'get back to base.” Crawling out of here was bad idea. “Can you get any choppers out here?”

Mina paused. She looked away. She looked back.

“Mike…” she started, speaking even more slowly than she had been before, tone much too soft. “You can’t come back.”

“Wha?”

“You’re rogue. I checked the feeds, Yancy’s already sent out notifications to the intelligence agencies about your status.”

The ground was most definitely sky. Ground didn’t spin like that. I dug my fingers into the dirt, willing myself not to fall up into the air. Rogue? It didn’t make sense.

“…if they find you,” she said, after a beat, “they’ll give you up to the government…if they don’t kill you first.”

She wasn’t saying I couldn’t come back to base. She was saying I couldn’t go _home_. Not now. Not ever. She was talking about…banishment, _execution_. Rogue? I was an agent. I was…

“Wait,” I said, struggling to get the word out. “What 'bout Alpha Protocol? That’s…that’s what this agency s'for – to allow agents to carry out Ops like this.”

She shook her head barely, trying so hard to be kind about it. Every motion was like taking a knife to the side.

“No, it’s to allow the government to _deny_ Ops like this – so that if they’re exposed, they can say that they had no involvement.”

I couldn’t hold the PDA anymore. It wasn’t a choice, to let go. I was just too dizzy.

“Mike,” Mina said, PDA face up in the dirt, “you’re on your own – Alpha Protocol’s the only thing _protecting_ you right now.”

“Yancy wouldn’t…Yancy wouldn’t…” I tried, the squeezing aching on my head too intense.

“Westridge?” she said, with an edge of disdain. “This is exactly something he’d do. He’s the one who sent you on this op, this suicide of an op, frankly. He’s the one who sent you here to these coordinates, alone. And he kidnapped you, remember?”

“But he’s family,” I said, rolling over. If I was looking at the dirt I didn’t have to worry about dropping into the sky suddenly.

“He’s what?” she said. “Never mind – that doesn’t matter anymore. You have to get out of there.”

“How?” He wouldn’t. He would never. He…

“Get back to the depot, see if you can’t find transportation. You need to get out of the city. I’ll see what I can do on my end.”

“You’re helping me?” I was no longer in control of what I was asking, the questions falling out of my mouth without my say so. I pressed my hands against my head. It felt like it was about to crack in half.

“Of course,” she said, as if there had never been a question of it. As if Yancy hadn’t…but he hadn’t, he couldn’t have. “Get out of the depot, get out of the city. And _I’ll_ call _you_. Westridge is going to breathing down my neck in a minute or two.”

“No,” I said. “No, it doesn’t…doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh, and Mike,” she continued. “You can’t head back by the safehouse. If this was Westridge, he’ll have people all over it.”

The safehouse. Yes. That made sense.

“Going to the safehouse,” I told her.

“What?!” she said, suddenly all exclamation. “Mike, they _will_ kill you. They’ll kill you, you know too much now.”

“It’ll be okay,” I reassured her. “He wouldn’t. This is a…just a mistake, you know?”

“Mike-”

I shut the earpiece off, and rested on the ground for a moment.

The wind blew through the checkpoint. The sky was darkening above. The night was getting cool.

I’d need to…to… _think._ Okay. I’d need to splint my leg if I wanted a chance of walking back through the mountains. The headache was… was worry about it later. Get Shaheed’s PDA out of here, and if he was telling the truth, if Halbech sold him missiles, crashed that airliner, if they tried to…if Yancy…

They had to be stopped. Even dizzy and not knowing which way was up right now, that much was clear to me. Something was wrong, and it had to made not wrong again.

In a minute. Once the double vision went away.

 

\-------------------

Evening...no, night.

2/08

Outside Safehouse

\-------------------

I stopped, and rested on another building. I was so, so sleepy. And tired. Out of breath after even a step. I couldn’t remember much of the drive. I couldn’t remember much except missiles streaking across the sky, looped over and over, over and over.

The safehouse was untouched. No guards swarming over it. No police. It was a mistake, I knew it. It was all this mistake, this Alpha Protocol, this Halbech. Everything was going to be okay.

I took a step and noticed something wrong.

A window was cracked open. Just a little. Just an inch. Enough that I started thinking, well, maybe I left it open. My memories were a mess right now, jumbled, scattered, broken up by pain. I could have left it open, or Sean could have.

A shadow slipped by inside, almost hidden by the dark of the night and the dirtiness of the glass.

_No._

No, no there were reasons for that. Good…good ones. My mind playing tricks. Lingering double vision. After images. I leaned off the building, took a few more steps, rested again. My leg was beyond numbness, beyond pain. Just grey stinging dull, like the freezing cold of snow.

Then the window closed, quickly, sharply. The curtains moved marginally with the disturbance, then settled.

No, there was…was…was reasons. He’d sent someone to help. Someone to help, and help me with…with whatever. He’d…

My PDA buzzed. I yanked my pistol out and trained it on empty air and then realized it was only my PDA. My heart was racing.

I grabbed the PDA, and turned it on.

_Please let it be Yancy._

It wasn’t.

It was Mina, looking haggard.

“Mike, oh god, you’re still okay. Listen, I don’t have much time-”

“There’s someone there,” I said, eyes fixed on the now closed window. “I think they want to help.”

“NO, Mike, _listen._ That’s Philip. He’s a bad guy. They’ve sent him to find you.”

Somewhere in the jumping spiked timeline of the last week, I caught sight of his name. Philip. Actually pretty stable. Creepy. Extended mission to…to…

“You have to get to the docks. I have somewhere there who can have you on a ship, but you have to be there within the hour. Can you make that?”

“But I…” I said, not sure what I was saying.

The window had been open, and then he closed it.

“Mike, listen. If this is just a misunderstanding, then you’ll be okay if you leave, Yancy will understand, I’m sure. But if it isn’t…or, or if he’s been misinformed, or something...you’ll die. Those are facts, Mike.”

“Did he ask what happened?” I said, sliding down the side of the building, too tired to stay standing.

“Yancy?” she asked, and paused. “...yes, he did. I tried to cover for you, but he already knew you'd survived. I don't know how. I’m sorry, Mike.”

“I thought…” I said, resting my head in my hands, because it was too heavy otherwise. “I thought he…thought this was good, you know? Was gonna-”

“I _know,_ Mike,” she said, forcefully. “There will be time for that later – _if_ you get out of there. I’m sending you the address. One hour, Mike, please, please be there.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why would he do this?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Mike, I’m so, so sorry, but I have to go. One hour. If I don’t hear from you again…good luck.”

The connection died quickly.

The address was 10 minutes away by car. I couldn’t remember where I’d put mine. I couldn’t remember if I could drive right now. Or think. I was just…

But there was someone in the house.

And…and it might be a mistake. It might all be a mistake.

If it was…then…

Then Mina was right, yeah? If I left, then we could sort it out when things had…had calmed down. They would. They would, a few weeks and I’d be home. Safe. Everything figured out.

They would.

I swallowed down on the hurt in my throat. Things would be okay in a few weeks. I’d be home. This was a mistake, yes, but I had to get out of here before the mistake got any worse.

Things would be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live, we begin to canonbend. i dont intend to do so lightly. i hope you enjoy the changes as the story goes along! might take me a couple weeks to get Russia and Rome in order as far as internal canon goes, but it shall be done in short order


	15. GREECE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone decides he's a superspy and goes off on a wild Halbech hunt

\------------------------

2/21

Cheap Hotel

Greece

\------------------------

Every time I fell asleep, I was back in the dark of the ship hold, fever burning everything away, or else back in the dirt in Saudi Arabia, the echo of missiles in the distance. The obvious solution was not to sleep.

I wasn’t having any trouble with that.

Shaheed’s PDA was looked up to a cheap laptop I’d lifted from the back of an open backpack on a chair at a café. They’d been a student. I’d put all their documents online but there was little chance of them finding it, I thought.

If things hadn’t been so bad, I…

“I’m still analyzing the information I got from Shaheed,” I said. “Nothing so far, it checks out. He’s been busy…and so has Halbech.”

In the corner of the laptop screen, Mina shook her head.

“So there _was_ a connection between Al-Samad and Halbech.”

I could understand the surprise in her tone. She hadn’t reviewed the data yet. Halbech was connected to Al-Samad. That was no longer the main problem.

“Looks that way…but what worries me is why,” I said. “According to this, Halbech’s got three targets…Taipei, Rome…and Moscow. Transmitting the information now.”

Mina scanned her screen as the data started going through. She didn’t have the time I’d had. She didn’t have the long, aching days staring at Yancy’s signature all over Halbech documents.

“Looks like the missiles were shipped through Moscow – Halbech’s got a distributor there…or _had_ one,” I told her. She nodded, distracted.

“…as for Rome,” I continued. “It looks like an Al-Samad cell was activated…but I don’t know why. And in Taipei… Ronald Sung… the president of Taiwan. Someone’s been ordered to assassinate him.”

A flash of empathy for Mr. Sung. Ignore it.

“This…doesn’t make sense,” she stammered, eyes still flipping back and forth in the camera. Was it really only a couple of weeks ago, when I thought the same thing? When I _believed_ the same thing?

“What does Halbech hope to gain?” she asked, the question almost a protest.

“A profit.” It was all in the data, arrogantly spelled out between the lines. “Halbech wants to raise global tensions, spark a cold war…and turn the world into their private marketplace.”

“They’ll be able to secure military contracts and a steady consumer base for their weapons for years to come.”

Her eyes fell away from the data, eyes wide with disbelief, with _how did we miss this?_

Yancy was how.

“ _If_ they succeed,” she added, more as an afterthought, it seemed, than a sincere belief.

I’d hoped she would disagree with me. I hadn’t expected her to. Halbech’s plans were blatantly clear, it was where those plans led that worried me. Shaheed’s data, when you extrapolated…

They must have trusted Shaheed, quite a bit. And they blew him up anyway.

_He knew too much. Like you do_. _If they find you…_

Ignore those thoughts, too.

“I need to get this information where it will do some good.” And I needed to do it now, before anything happened to me. Before someone from the docks, or some stranger off the streets, before anyone got a little too friendly with the wrong person and word got back to Yancy about where I was.

“No one will listen, Mike – not only are you rogue, but Halbech’s gotten inside Alpha Protocol somehow. If you’re caught-”

“I know,” I interrupted, sharply. I hadn’t intended to shout. I shouldn’t be yelling at Mina.

“Execution, imprisonment…possibly another lecture by Westridge,” I offered, working at an apologetic smile. “I’m on my own.” There had to be a way, though. Someone who would-

“No, not…exactly,” she said, so quietly I thought she was talking to herself at first.

“What?”

“They used you…but we can use Alpha Protocol – there’s so many levels of secrecy to it, not even the staff know all the resources the program has.” Mina got more and more excited as she talked, coming alive, head bobbing. Clearly, she had a plan.

“Like…?”

“Safehouses, weapons…if you’re going after these targets, you’ll need a base of operations in each city. I…can dig up some spots that aren’t listed in any records.”

Base of operations? Targets? She was honestly suggesting I go after Halbech, myself. Me, versus the entire intelligence community.

Sorry, _us_. It…was an idea.

“Better than this place?” I said, working hard to make it sound light.

“I think,” she said, smiling in return.

“Well, that settles that,” I said.

She straightened up, all vehement energy banished to her eyes. Outwardly professional, calm, and centered.

“It sounds like you’re going after these targets, then.”

I thought about it. Yeah, Halbech needed to be brought down, and yeah, I didn’t exactly have anywhere else to go, but taking them down on my own was, well, if American defense corporations could be bought down by one guy, Al-Samad would have done it ages ago.

I grabbed the edge of the laptop with one hand, studied the other shaking one as I thought out loud.

“Just because they tried to drop a missile on me…doesn’t mean I have to give up on my mission. If Halbech’s trying to manipulate world events…then it’s my responsibility to stop them.”

I was an agent. A rogue agent, sure, but that was just an adjective. I had the know-how, the chance, and hell, the backup – fuck you, Yancy – to stop Halbech. Mina watched me while my hand balled up on its own.

“Also…I don’t like that they used me to do their dirty work – send me to kill Shaheed and get their merchandise back? No way I am letting them get away with that.”

Mina let out all her breath at once, then started typing. A moment later, a world map popped up on my screen, a pulsating warning symbols flashing over it.

“Judging from the data, Mike, that’s good news. If Halbech’s trying to cause a cold war…”

Onscreen, tactical info displayed over every country, then small pings of light, and arcing red trails. Simulated ICBM strikes. Each time one hit, the map was covered in diagonal red lines, blocking out patches of land. I’d hoped I’d been wrong, had wanted so much for Mina to tell me it was the sleeplessness, it was stress, it was me, analyzing things wrong, extrapolating too much. But there it was.

“They’ve made a mistake,” I said, ending her sentence for her. The map filled with red, more and more alarms appearing over various nations. Annihilation. In moments, the map was entirely red, missile strikes halting, one country at a time. _This_ was the problem. Not Al-Samad, not Flight 6133. Not even Yancy. “They’re going to cause a real one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //FT edits live


	16. RUSSIA: Crime and Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mikey lands in Russia, and gains some potential allies as well as a whole new set of problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FT edits live and applied to Russia

_Leland smirked. He liked doing that. Easy to ignore, except…_

_“The reporter – the photographer?”_

_The screen whined with a buzz, and a click, and her face appeared._

_“Scarlet,” I said, despite myself. How…? She was safe. She was an unknown. If they knew how much she knew, if they had found out, if they’d gotten to her…_

_“You met her leaving Saudi-” Another causality. Another dead. My fault. “then in Taipei, but after that…”_

_Not Scarlet too, please._

_“…we lost track of her.”_

_He waved his cigar through the air and gazed down through the smoke. It would have been silence, except for the buzzing._

_“I always wondered how you two happened to meet,” he said. “Coincidence?”_

_“I don’t know…” I said, too late to cover for it. He’d caught it. He’d catch her._

 

* * *

 

The security agent had looked at my passport too long. The man from ticketing, what were the chances he was actually _supposed_ to be on the same plane as me? The baggage guy wanted more money – he’d sell my rifle, first chance he got. We’d land in Moscow, and there would be plainclothes agents waiting with handcuffs. Al-Samad would bomb another plane. We’d crash in the ocean. This wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t going to _work,_ we-

“You wouldn’t _believe_ the day I’ve had,” she said.

Her necklace hit first, shining and delicate, small silver bars fused together at each end by bright red gemstones. Then her hair. Also very red. The woman dropping into the seat next to smiled kindly and gave me a brief nod. She was probably just trying to be friendly.

She was the first person in almost a week who’d tried to talk to me. I looked at her for a second, forgetting for a moment who I was supposed to be.

“Misery loves company,” I said. Stuttered. Recovered. “Care to share?”

She shook her head. “No, not really. Same old Saudi Arabia.”

“Not quite like the brochure, huh?”

She snorted, covering her grin with one hand. “I’m Scarlet.”

“Mike,” I told her. I shouldn’t be talking to her at all.

“So, Mike, what brings you to this exciting corner of the world?” she asked, and I shouldn’t have been talking to her, but…

“I’m in Claims and Acquisitions for Halbech, apparently. Still getting a feel for the job.”

“Oh,” was all she said.

How to explain Halbech without getting angry?

“That was my reaction…” I said. “Or was that an ‘oh,’ as in, I’ve never heard of Halbech?”

She spared me the trouble.

“‘Oh’ in the sense of yes, I’ve heard of Halbech – military and construction contractor.”

_And black market terrorist sponsor,_ I thought.

“That names comes up a lot in this sector,” she continued, leaning back into her chair and staring up at the No Smoking light.

Interesting. She wasn’t a tourist, then.

“That’s right. So, if you’re familiar with the area, that would make you a…?”

She hooked a black slip-on around a strap under the seat in front of her, and slid a backpack out from it. The rugged canvas pack was unmarked, no answers there. She opened it, rifled through several papers and books, holding up one finger at me when I tried to ask about it. After a moment, she tugged out a magazine that’d been folded open to a very flashy advertisement for…shoes? Vodka? It prominently displayed a pair of legs, ending in stiletto high heels, and a bottle of something on fire. Shoes, or vodka?

I looked over at her.

“Those your legs?”

She raised a single eyebrow at me.

“ _Other_ page.”

Oops.

On the next page was a heavily edited article about Al-Samad and their efforts to destroy ancient cultural artifacts. Every other sentence was underlined, or crossed out, or circled with an arrow directing somewhere else.

“Cover story by Scarlet Lake…photojournalist,” I read.

“Mm. I hear she’s on this flight,” said Scarlet Lake the journalist.

I shouldn’t have been talking to her before. I _really_ shouldn’t be talking to her now.

“Dangerous work around those parts, I’d imagine,” I said instead.

“If there’s no risk, it’s not important,” she chided.

“I think you’re on to something,” I allowed, and handed her article back.

She looked it over for a moment, dug a pen out of her bag, and started scribbling notes in the margins. Meanwhile, flight attendants chattered, walking up and down the aisles, checking overhead compartments. Any moment, one of them was going to quietly say there’d been some sort of a problem with my whatever it was, and could I please just step off the plane for a moment, sir? One had just looked at me. But he didn’t smile. He knows something. They were going to radio in. Right this moment, they were pulling apart baggage-

Scarlet poked my shoulder, and I jumped. She held up her hands in mock innocence, a business card between two fingers.

“Here,” she told me. “Call me. I have a lot of contacts in the area, maybe we can work out a trade – _if_ you should hear anything, of course.”

 “If I hear anything juicy, you’re the first person I’ll call,” I said, joking tone.

And then not joking. Talking to her was a bad idea, of course it was, but…a photojournalist, a civilian…Yancy wouldn’t be looking for her. He’d know I’d know better. A random stranger on a place isn’t someone you trust to send raw Halbech targeting data to. Not even the analysis of that data. Or a summary of an analysis. Not even once we knew more.

I did know better.

“I appreciate that,” Scarlet said.

The flight attendants began their final checks. A dull thunk from the front of the plane, the door closing, and I relaxed. Marginally. They didn’t know.Yet. They hadn’t caught on – yet. It was going to be a long plane ride.

“You know,” Scarlet started a few minutes later, interrupting the flight attendant’s important demonstration of how to put on a seat belt, “there’s something about you – makes me think I might just be sitting next to a headline.

“Uh-huh,” I said dismissively. The plane began to rumble as we pulled out. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm just a normal guy.”

“Are you sure?” she said, an injection of coyness masking suspicion. Or maybe I was reading into it too much. She didn’t know anything about me.

Yet.

I crossed my arms. “Mostly.”

A frown creased her forehead for a fraction of a second, and then she turned her attention back to the flight attendants and their demonstration of the latest life vest technology.

“Okay, if you say so.”

“Bad things happen to all kinds of people,” I told her. “You might get lucky.”

She glanced back over at me. Was that concern, pulling at the corners of her eyes? “I think I’ll keep an eye on you, regardless.” It _was_ concern. I’d forgotten how…civil, civilians could be, at times. How nice. Soft, depending on how you looked at it. Two weeks in, and already Flight 6133 was statistics and news feed fodder and causalities to be avenged.

Statistic, news feed fodder, or causality to be avenged?

“I’d appreciate that,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t hear over the captain’s joking.

Judging from the crinkling in the edge of her eyes, and the sideways look, she had.

20 percent chance of success.

…probably statistic.

  _\------------------------_

Saturday, 2/23/2008, 20:02,

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Moscow

_\------------------------_

“Welcome to Moscow, Mike.”

The apartment was nice. The apartment was more than nice. Modern, sleek, open. Sunken central living room, odd loft-type bedroom, curved balcony, covered in snow. Most the surfaces were polished black stone or steel. It looked like something out of the Virtual Reality walk-in ad for a house for rich oligarchs.

“How do you like your new apartment?” Mina asked, from the widescreen TV mounted on the wall. People had beds smaller than the thing. _I’d_ had beds smaller than that thing.

“Nice digs – I see where all that black ops funding really goes now.”

“Invoking Alpha Protocol does have its upside,” she joked.

“Jealous?”

“Of you freezing your butt of in Moscow?” Outside, a few errant snowflakes drifted down to join the crystallized piles already on the balcony. I had a sweater on. I was freezing all the same. “Not so much.”

“Although…” she said, tilting her head thoughtfully, savoring every word, “there is a certain appeal to sitting around in the loft, drinking cocoa, while _you_ are crawling around in the snow.”

“Mina?” I said, suppressing a shiver.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“You’re a cruel person.”

She shrugged, grin unrelenting, then settled back down into her chair. “Down to business.”

Right. I was supposed to be dodging international intelligence agencies, preventing World War III, and bringing down a corrupt multinational corporation, not standing around, huh.

“Do you have a plan of attack for Moscow?” she asked.

“I’ve got a few leads from Saudi to follow up on. We’ll see where those take me.”

“Sounds…like a solid plan. What will you follow up on first?”

“Not sure yet – the missiles launchers were moved through Leningradski Station, there might be intel there. I’ve also got a CIA informant codename ‘Grigori’ and a mod underboss called Lazo.”

“Finding those missiles is important, although more information would be helpful – but from his file,” she cautioned, “Grigori looks like the type who would sell information about you to interested parties. Lazo might be able to provide some leads, too.”

“If I go to the train station first, I think I’ll figure that out pretty quick.”

“Yeah,” she said pointedly, “when you walk right into an ambush.”

“It’s only an ambush if you don’t see it coming,” I reminded her. “I’ll be in touch.”

Weather report promised snow later in the evening. The thought of being stuck inside with nothing to do and no clue if any of the leads were good was making me feel strangely jumpy.

_\------------------------_

23:16

Dimitri’s Bar

_\------------------------_

It was a hole-in-the-wall place straight out of some turn-of-the-century Russian novelist’s nightmare. Grigori – a man with nearly black eyes and enough wrinkles to prove he was a dangerous player in this game – was slumped over the wooden bar, bottle of vodka nestled beside an open palm. He didn’t respond when I introduced myself. It wasn’t until I mentioned Halbech that he unfolded himself, scanning me with an alert attention that belied his posture.

“You are here conducting an investigation? Very interesting,” he said, strength of his voice also mismatching his bent posture.

“Halbech’s involved in serious arms trafficking violations,” I said curtly. “I wanna stop them.”

“Interfering in such things is dangerous in Moscow…but you must know this.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Of course,” he said, affected sympathy shining through his slurred accent, eyes widening. “You’re on a 'mission' – and this is a matter of national…no, _international_ security.”

I could have done without implied air quotes. But judging by the intel, he outclassed me in experience in just about every way. He’d figure me out sooner or later.

“I can help,” he promised, idly running a finger around the base of his vodka, “but such information will not come cheaply.”

Of course not. I didn’t exactly flee Greece with…well, with anything other than the gold-plated AR I stole off Shaheed’s bodyguard. Now was not the time for bargaining, though. I needed intel. And for that, I needed Mina to use some of Alpha Protocol’s boundless funding. They’d have to go without a new TV this month - I sure as hell was keeping the gun.

“I’ll have the money sent to you. Now, can you help me, or not?”

“It would be my pleasure – what is it you want to know?”

Wanted to know? Too many things to ask about today. But there was only one thing I _needed_ to know about.

“I’m looking for all the dirt on Halbech I can get,” I said. “Who’s profiting from their smuggling here in Moscow?”

He shook his head. “That I do not know. But there is someone who would know the answer. He is a businessman here in Moscow – Sergei Surkov. He may know who Halbech is dealing with.”

Mina’s voice buzzed in over the earpiece. Good. My earpiece _was_ working. When I’d found it in the back of the safehouse armory, I wasn’t sure I could fix it. “Sergei Surkov…” she said. “Running a check on the name now…we’re getting a lot of hits, he shouldn’t be hard to find.”

Grigori looked at me curiously, finally settling on my earpiece. His eyes narrowed, obscuring most the white parts.

I nodded, with a sheepish gesture at the thing. “Telemarketers,” I mouthed.

“Although judging from his contacts list, figuring out where his next appointment is could take time,” Mina reported. Grigori continued sizing me up. He was rapidly being joined by other alarmingly alert faces from the darker corners of the bar.

“You were planning to investigate Leningradski station, yes?” Grigori interrupted, not so much asking as assuming. “Maybe you can do me a favor.”

“A favor?” I said. A guy in the back table made very deliberate eye contact with me as he pulled a revolver out from under his table and clunked it down on the surface.

“Your American missiles are not the only…ah, _cargo_ that comes through the station. If you go, maybe you could divert these shipments – accidentally, of course.”

“What, you mean change the shipping labels?” I scoffed. “And me, without my label maker.”

“It is more simple than that. The box destination is stenciled on the side -  but it is a code. Change it with a marker, and the boxes will end up somewhere else…to a friend of ours, who will be happy to reimburse us, maybe do a little business with you.”

“I’ll think about it,” I lied. Halbech was the arms dealer. Not me.

“What more can an old man ask for?” Grigori sunk back down into his hunched over the counter, as clear a dismissal as if he’d told me to go fuck off. Like hell I was going to send him those weapons. Revolver man casually pulled out a second overpowered pistol, probably intending to be doubly threatening. I winked at him, then got the hell out of there before anyone decided to try and hand me my ass.

Not that they’d win, конечно.

_\------------------------_

01:57

Safehouse

_\------------------------_

 

The snow arrived, and boy did it arrive. Sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket seemed like a waste of time when Halbech was probably out there, planning. Battling insomnia seemed pretty damn idiotic when I was supposed to be battling international terrorism. The storm pressed hard against the splint I’d been wearing around the house, setting my teeth on edge when they weren’t busy chattering. Saudi Arabia was only technically healed, and the damn storm was making sure I fully understood the _technically_ part.

Fun facts about Halbech I’d learned while sorting through intel – aka wikipedia. Hard to get actual intel when you aren’t actually an intelligence agent. Halbech. Going out of business, so to speak. At least, it was bad enough that their wiki page had an entire section on it. Run by the young visionary best-friend-of-the-last-CEO Henry Leland, a thirty-something who looked like he was the one who gave life the lemons in the first place, along with a pat on the back and some condescending advice about business plans. By all accounts, brilliant – though, given how swiftly his company was going downhill, how brilliant could he be? A big bad corporation, a CEO with too many friends in places way too high, and one agent stuck shivering under a comforter because walking around was just too damn hard today. No problem, right? Right.

I ran through the Wikipedia game, jumping from a random article until I hit back on the page about Halbech nine times before I had to admit to myself this was getting nowhere. I called Mina three times before I had to admit that, too, was getting nowhere. I spent an hour cursing at the storm through the gigantic curved windows in front of the balcony. It didn’t care. Then I tried to work on a travel log, but the funny thing about that is that the travel logs are pointless now, aren’t they? I’m not on a mission. Not a real one. No one to report back to. No one watching me. Unless from far away, through a scope pointed at those balcony windows, tracking me from the sofa to the windows, to a pile on the ground, notebook papers scattered about. Waiting, and watching and waiting and watching.

But they couldn’t see through this storm, even if they were out there.

I tapped at my computer keys idly. I couldn’t have focused enough to get any work done even if I’d needed to. Couldn’t fall asleep through. The storm was making strange haunted wind noises.

A snack. I snack would be good. I hadn’t eaten in…who knows how long. I stood up and mercy of all mercies, my PDA buzzed with an email.

I flopped back onto the couch, wincing a little when a light pain bit at my leg.

_Hey Mike,_ it started.

I was happy, oddly, happy for all of a split second. Then I realized it didn’t say _Hey Mike,_ it said _Hey ‘Mike’,_ and those two airquotes were world of trouble.

_Hey ‘Mike’,_ it started.

_Funny how you have a Halbech email account, and your name is listed in the company directory, but you don’t even have a voicemail set up at your office. So let me guess, you’re a K Street lobbyist and Henry Leland set you up with a no show job? I’m guessing the whole Mike Thorton name is just a cover._

Small fingers of ice, colder than even the air in the house, were creeping up my spine at the thought of a civilian poking around the Halbech databases for me, alerting them, drawing attention. More urgent, though, and easier to think about. Me, a lobbyist. Shaking hands and taking names. Pushing company lines, sugar sweet smiles, soft knocks on the door of a secretary I’d sent a muffin basket to last week so she’d let me talk to Senator such-and-such today. Taking Darcy’s dad on a golf trip so he’d vote for laxer regulations on monitoring military contracts. Dark secret: I don’t even usually _vote_ , much less lobby. And I probably have to wear a suit.

The laughing felt good. Better than the alternative, anyway.

_Well, whoever you are, it was nice to meet you_ , her email continued. _I spend a lot of time on planes and ninety percent of the time they seat me next to old ladies or screaming kids._

_-Scarlet_

Civilians, yeah?

_Hey, it’s ‘Mike’_ , I started typing out. My fingers were freezing, and slow and clunky.

_You figured me right out, Scarlet. My deep secret. I…_

_I…_

_I…really just hate talking on the phone. Have_ you _ever been called at two a.m. by some over-exuberant Ivy Leaguer convinced that their invention is going to change payload-to-cost ratios for the rest of time? But I agree. It was nice to meet you too. So, I’ll let you in on my second secret...ready?_

_Email._

_No calls. It’s the tech revolution, or haven’t you heard?_

_Gotta love it._

_-Mike, sans apostrophes_

I saved it to drafts, and shut my PDA off. It’s the kind of thing Yancy drilled me out of. And Mina would lose it. Not that I’d told her about meeting Ms. Lake yet. But talking to Scarlet on the plane had been asking for trouble. This would be like telling Trouble where you lived and inviting it in for a party.

On the other hand she could be an asset. Someone who could help us take down Halbech. It was a thought.

On the other hand, I was a idiot.

Several hours, one hundred and twelve Wikipedia pages, nine news segments, four photojournalism articles, two sandwiches and one excruciating minute spent trying to make heads and tails of the Leningradski station schematics later, I grabbed the PDA, turned it on, hit send, and went back to moping on the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 42, 43, 44, and 45 [51]  
> I know we know in-game by now that Darcy's dad is a senator, but I forget if I've ever put that fact in here.  
> It definitely makes sense to hire a senator-soon-to-run-for-president's kid to a super secret if-compromised-we-all-die spy club, huh. good one there yancy.  
> [as a side note sean's dad isn't any happier about the situation](https://alpha-protocol.tumblr.com/post/172462036627/westridgeemail3)  
> FT edits live  
> original pub date sept 12 2016 holy shit.


	17. Mirskontsa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a visit to the train yard almost goes off the rails. Hey- wait- no, I'll be more serious, promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bits in Russian at the end have lovely rollover text with the English translation as well as the phonetic so you can say it out loud, if you are so inclined.

_\------------------------_

Monday, 2/25, 13:19

Leningradski Station

Moscow

_\------------------------_

As soon as I got close to the station, I heard the sound of rapid gunfire. That meant three things. One: I had company. Two: they were after something, and willing to fight for it. And three: I was the unluckiest guy who ever lived.

I could only think of one reason why anybody else would be here. The weapons shipment.

Several punks in tracksuits were running around from cargo box to box when I finally made it to the back end of the yard. They cursed in Russian and tried to stay down. They were doing all the right things, really. Covering each other. Firing short, controlled bursts. The tallest, in a bright blue jumpsuit, was giving reasoned, measured orders to fall back, or else move forwards, or when to stop and reload. They were actually pretty good. But the shots coming at them from slightly above kept finding their mark anyway.

“Must be a small army up there,” I said, under my breath.

I tried to keep close to the walls and out of sight, ducking behind a crate as a final headshot felled the blue jumpsuit, and the shooting ceased. I’d wait until the whomevers moved on. I was one person. I could move faster than them. Possibly even-

A shot ricocheted across the top of my cover box.

“Come out,” said a woman, with a thick German accent, “or I'll shoot through those boxes you are crouching behind.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” I called, and slowly slid my head from behind the boxes.

There were three figures on top of a train shed. The one in the middle…

She was holding a big fucking gun. Terrifyingly, unfairly big. It would probably span the length of both her arms, if she stretched them out. Both of her uncovered, bandaged arms. She wasn’t wearing much else, either. It was snowing. Lightly, but still. The woman had on a white tube top that stopped above her belly button. Cargo pants that didn’t bother to try going that high. Bright pink sunglasses, and a black beret with a wing and three stars, short blond hair with a few bits of grey poking out from under it. The gun, attached to a harness around her shoulders, was pointed directly at me, and didn’t seem interested in moving.

I stuck my hands up promptly.

“Hmmm,” she mused. “You must be that American agent I’ve heard so much about.”

Aaand there’s number three again. Fucking hell.

“A little bird told you that?” I asked. Grigori. I figured he’d talk to _someone,_ but goddamn, was he fast about it. I shoulda gone to bed sooner. Could have beat her here.

“Grigori is no bird, _dahling_ ,” the woman said, leaning on the emphasis. Puffs of vapor formed in the snowy air as she spoke. How did she stand the weather? “You should be careful who you speak to. Here to catch a train?”

“Missed my stop and got off at the wrong station,” I said.

She paused, resting her gun across her shoulders like a yoke. “ _That_ is true, yes. But…we should talk. I do not want to shoot you, as I only have so many bullets.”

“Judging by the number of corpses in the snow, you could have fooled me.”

“I propose a deal,” she said, amused rather than annoyed. “I am here for the same reason you are – to find this Halbech train. We work together, we both get what we want.”

Halbech _train_? I smiled politely, hoping she hadn’t caught my surprise. Here I was, thinking the best we were gonna get from this station was maybe pulling some scheduling data off the computers . If there was a train here…did that make me luckier, or even more unlucky?

“If your objective is to reach the train,” I said carefully, “then we can help each other out. After that…I can’t make any promises.”

“Nor can I. Until the train is reached, then. _Ja_?”

“Well,” I started, “considering you have the drop on me-” _and you seem to know something I don’t about this ‘Halbech train’_ \- “then I sounds like a deal. For now.”

“That is good. Because I think we have company.”

Footsteps and shouting from beyond the shed. More of…whoever those jumpsuits were with. Worry about that later. For now, the Halbech train. If there were two words I’d never wanted to hear combined...

I let Gun Woman’s snowsuit pals draw fire from the tracksuit reinforcements streaming around rusted cars, barricades on the tracks, and through the smaller buildings dotting either side of the ice-covered railway. It was easy to slip by when I kept close to the stationary train cars parked on the tracks. I’d almost rather have taken my chances with the shooting than with the creaking, looming train cars.

At least I couldn’t see all the way down the tracks. Every couple hundred meters, the terrain would twist sharply up, and the tracks would disappear into a dark tunnel. Or else there would be trackwide barricades, piled-up concrete barriers and boxes. The Tracksuits hadn’t had much time to prepare. Of course, on certain tracks, there was nothing. No barricades. No ice, either. Active rails. I stayed far away from them as I snuck my way into one of the longer side administration buildings.

From indoors, the sound of the shooting was muffled.

“Looks like I’ve walked into the middle of a turf war,” I reported, tapping lightly on my earpiece.

“Hope you’re not planning on getting involved,” Mina said. “And stop tapping, please. I can hear you fine.”

More gunfire rung out, and a Tracksuit crashed backwards through the door, gurgling out some last faint curse.

“May not have much choice. In getting involved, I mean.”

“Just…remember why you’re here,” she cautioned.

What, did she think I was going to fly off the handle and go murder a swath of Russian mobsters? I didn’t have any tranqs, yeah, but that was cold. She had a point, though. I was here to find some intel. And now a Halbech train. Neither of which I knew where to find. Had to be something in here that could help.

“Who are the guys in the track suits?” I asked, as I rummaged around hastily vacated workspaces.

“No idea. They may be guarding the train.”

Halbech guys guarding a Halbech train. Great.

 

* * *

 

Three hastily scribbled notes, one angrily written memo, and one clearly typed reminded to PLEASE STOP THROWING COINS ON THE TRACKS NEXT TO THE DATA CENTER, SASHA, I was on my way to figuring out what the hell Gun Woman meant by the Halbech train. A literal person, Gun Woman. Halbech did have a train. The train had weapons on it. The Halbech missiles weren’t the only thing moving through Leningradski. They were smuggling other shit through. Actively, it seemed.

So that was the good news.

The bad news was the data center seemed like the kind of place I should probably check out. The bad news was the data center was located in the middle of the longest section of track yet. The _bad_ news was as soon as I sorted my way out of the warehouses around it, the section of track started rumbling, angry horn noise blasting through the air. And what do you know, but on the very first track, some two feet from my toes, a giant train rocketed through, spraying snow and pebbles everywhere. The shaking was so bad I just about fell over.

“You okay, Mike?” Mina asked.

“Mmhm.” It was the most significant noise I could make myself make.

“Good, because I’m picking up movement on that water tower.”

A red line appeared above my head. I visually traced the beam through the air, reaching its source at the same time as the sniper shifted his aim down a little.

“Shit,” I shouted, and snapped into motion. I dove forward across the tracks, landing behind a stack of unused railroad ties. “Snipers on the tower.”

No sign of Gun Woman. She was probably still caught up with the battle at the front end of the yard.

In the two seconds before I’d nearly been hit by a train, had I seen anything useful? I couldn’t remember. I was about to take a peek out from behind the unused ties, when the earsplitting horn from another train echoed from down the tracks, where they emerged from a tunnel. Staying behind the ties, hardly six inches from the edge of the tracks was _not_ an option. Neither was getting shot. Forwards, or backwards? I was out of time for thinking. I wasn’t sure if I was cursing out loud or not. The headlight from the engine, brighter than the cloudy sunshine, lit up the snowy air and made it hard to see. The rumbling and the horn made it hard to hear. The sniper on one side and train on the other, made it impossible to move. I pressed myself into the ties as hard as I could manage, wrapped a hand around one, and tried very hard to stop existing. It felt like it was pulling at me. That’s a thing, right? Trains sucking stuff under the wheels, great big oily wheels crushing and gnawing and pulverizing bones? I couldn’t look. I couldn’t not look. It was one endless metallic, rusty blur, and after what seemed like an eternity, the last car blasted past, leaving only empty silent white.

Silent, except the whispering rushing noise of my pulse in my ears. And then Mina.

“Mike!”

Sight and sound returned as one, rapid and distant gunshots telling me where Gun Woman was, glowing red dots on the tracks telling me the snipers were still after me, sore aching in my hand telling me that if I didn’t let go of the train tie, I’d feel it tomorrow.

I think I gave myself splinters.

“…was that even English?” Mina asked, sounding offended.

"No." I guess I _had_ been swearing out loud. So much for keeping that on the DL.

On the bright side, after the train, two snipers didn’t seem so bad. I looked through the gaps in the ties, and lo and behold, at the base of the water towers, a pill shaped tank with a DANGER sign, and an EXPLOSIVE label.

“It’s funny, actually. I’ve gone over your dossier a dozen times,” Mina teased, while I tried to ignore her and focus on the _actual_ problem, “and it didn’t say anything about trains. In fact-”

The explosion cut her short, and I slung my rifle back on. The metal base of the tower twisted as the struts blew apart, and the snipers screamed as it all came crashing down.

Mina was silent.

“Timber,” I added.

 

* * *

 

The computer systems in the data center were surprisingly resilient. So was the battle taking place throughout the trainyard. I had time.

“I’m in,” I reported after far too long. The sound of a muffed explosion rattled the window panes of the data center. “I found the shipping manifests – but no mention of the missiles. Weapons – a lot of them – are coming through this train yard. But not the ones we’re looking for.”

“It still could help us,” Mina said. “I’ll pass it along to the authorities.”

While Mina was doing that, I was going to go check out the train. According to the records, the Halbech car was part of a train situated in the middle of two active tracks, in the middle of an active battle, in the middle of the commotion being kicked up by my not-so-covert allies.

Having just blown up a water tower, I guess I can’t criticize.

 

* * *

 

Gun Woman’s white snowsuit companions blended well into the snow on the roofs. Tracksuits kept falling over, holes appearing in their chests and various appendages. The Tracksuits were just as uncertain about it as I was, and were too busy trying to find her people while dodging trains to look out for one very stealthy agent. An agent that they, in fact, did not even know was there.

If they had come to the train yard to guard the Halbech weapons, they were doing a poor job of it. The guy guarding the car had run off to join his fellows in shooting at snowbanks. No one heard the boxcar door protesting as I worked it open.

“Wow,” I said.

The car was packed with assorted crates, some with Halbech labels, other unmarked. Canisters with warning labels in Russian were stacked on a pallet next to a column of thin, flat, cases. Someone had cracked a case of parts open. Silencers, probably for something else in the train.

“Feel like I’ve just walked into a toy store,” I reported. I lifted a case from the top of the bunch, and flipped it open. A silvery, delicate, lightweight looking sniper rifle. Fascinating. I pulled it free, and whistled. Dang. The thing was dense as hell. I almost dropped it. I was opening the next case – a pistol as crappy looking as the rifle had been impressive, when a cough from Mina reminded me of what I supposed to be doing.

“Right,” I said, and replaced the pistol case. On the floor, the rifle shined distractingly. I valiantly ignored it, and grabbed a clipboard from a pile of papers on top of a crate. “Looks like the shipments ready to go to its client.” Big question – who was Halbech shipping these to? Al-Samad, or someone else? The codes Grigori mentioned were on the sides, and relisted on the clipboard. I couldn’t make heads or tails of them. Grigori had told me what to change it to, if I wanted to send it to him, but that didn’t help me figure these out.

Over the earpiece, I caught Mina’s hesitation as she started to speak, then stopped herself.

“Yeah?”

“We’re…” she said, slowly, “…I’m not going to have time to warn the local authorities. And they won’t have time to confiscate the weapons before they’re moved out. It’d be safer to destroy them, but…”

“That’s going to take time, too,” I finished. And given the ferocity with which Gun Woman’s crew was going after the Tracksuits, even if I could find something to destroy the weapons with, I highly doubted they would give me the chance. We were, of course, only allies until we both reached the train.

I glanced back down at the flimsy sniper rifle, a very terrible feeling forming, that I would have loved to ignore. I knew what I _did_ have time to do. Next to the clipboard, on the pile of papers, had been a Sharpie. Or the Russian knockoff equivalent.

I wasn’t going to send these to Grigori. I _wasn’t_. I was better than that. There was a solution.

The gunfire outside began petering down, underscoring how little time I had to find that solution. I scowled and kicked the rifle, cursing when my toes connected. The damn thing was stronger than it looked. I wasn’t going to send it to Grigori. I couldn’t send it to Al-Samad.

At least…at least I knew who Grigori was. And _where_ he was. Need be, I could...check up on him. Make sure the shipment was being used properly. Improperly. Not for shooting the wrong people.

“I’m going to ship them to Grigori," I informed Mina lightly. "Hopefully he’ll appreciate the present.”

She said nothing

The shots outside were getting few and far between. I worked quickly, scribbling over existing labels and trying not to think about what it was I was doing.

“Mike, we don’t have time for-” Mina finally started, disapproval evident in the sharpness of her words. She cut herself off just as harshly, and sighed.

“Never mind,” she muttered, under her breath. The earpiece went dead silent, as she not only stopped talking, but muted herself.

“You’d better appreciate this, Grigori,” I said to myself, finishing the last crates. The sudden angry dead air was being matched by a sudden dead quiet outside, though, so I put aside figuring out just how mad I had made Mina, and swung out of the car.

I landed directly in from of a very surprised Tracksuit. He got out one shrill yelp before I knocked him out. It was enough. Several returning shouts convinced me now might be a good time to take cover back in the car.

Sure enough, a moment later gunshots were pelting the car. I ducked out, exchanging rifle fire with them whenever I could, and doing, in my opinion, pretty well. I had two of the three guys down when I was abruptly reminded that the car had two sides. A boot connected with my back and sent me out over the edge.

I landed hard, my forehead nicking the edge of a railroad tie, rifle falling out of my reach in the snow. Someone jumped out behind me, and then the bulky barrel of a gun was jammed painfully against my spine. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the remaining Tracksuit start limping over, torn pants revealing a nasty hole.

So much for getting out of here the easy way.

The man with the gun at my back started shouting something in Russian.

It was infinitely less important than the slight vibrations of the railroad tie under my head.

I twisted my face towards the other direction. The dark tunnel further down the tracks was still empty. I couldn’t see anything yet. But I would. Soon.

“Mike,” Mina's voice said cautiously, popping back into existence in my earpiece, “why are you on the tracks?”

“Working on it,” I muttered.

“ _С кем вы работаете?!_ ” the guy with the gun shouted, leaning a little harder into the barrel. I inched my hands up above my head until my fingers brushed the freezing grey metal of the tracks, and started carefully rolling over.

“ _Не понимаю, я с вами_ ,” I told him innocently, in as perfect Russian as I could manage. He grunted, confused, but let me flip over. I kept my hands resting on the tracks, though. Feeling the vibrations deepen. The second guy scowled, told Anatoliy to just shoot me so they could finally go home, but the first man didn’t look convinced by this stellar argument. Either that, or his home life must have really sucked.

“ _Кто вы?_ ” The man shook his silenced pistol at my face, deep suspicion etched over his exposed frost covered face. Anatoliy rolled his eyes, and began complaining vociferously about how Yulian took everything so seriously, that life wasn’t some Hollywood movie, and that instead of interrogating “some American asshole” he should most definitely just shoot me, already. I took offense at that. Most people, unless they know otherwise, can’t tell from my nationality from my Russian accent. I worked hard on that.

I didn’t say anything about it, though. The light was appearing in the tunnel, the vibrations shaking the tracks, and if Yulian and his buddy wanted to get into a protracted debate about gangster morals, and what they _should_ , not just _could_ , do with me, that was their problem. Mine would be here in some twenty seconds. I slowly pulled my hands down by my side.

The train horn belted out, interrupting Yulian and Anatoliy’s musings. The clacking of the wheel and hissing of the engine drowned their respective points out, anyway. So, instead, Yulian leaned over, pistol at my chest.

“ _Я спрашиваю последний раз_ ,” he warned. “ _С кем вы работаете?”_

I think he was planning on pushing me in front of the train, the bastard.

“ _Твоя мать,”_ I hit back, and kicked his leg out as fast as I could. He went down, Anatoliy cursing and bringing his pistol to bear. I scrambled back from the track and grabbed hold of the Yulian’s hair. I forced him back in-between me and the second shooter, finally getting an elbow locked around his throat, and it wasn’t much, but it was cover enough.

Yulian writhed, digging at my arm with his nails. I couldn’t feel it. All I could feel was the world shaking from the train. Anatoliy darted over, shouting, but I couldn’t hear him over the whistle. He aimed a punch at my head. I tried to duck, but Yulian dug in hard and yanked his hand down the length of my arm. I fell over next to the tracked, head smarting, cradling my arm, the deep scratch lines bloody and ragged and hurting.

Anatoliy pointed his pistol at my head, and demanded something I couldn’t hear. The wheels made clack clack noises. The heat of the engine was already near.

I closed my eyes and breathed for a moment. So this was it then. Kicked and scratched and beat up and for all that, I get to get killed in a trainyard. I put my hands down beside me, and tried to force a feeling of composure.

Then my eyes sprung open. I was careful not to look, only to feel. Depressed down in the snow, hidden by the few centimeters of cover the snow gave it, was the familiar smoothness of my rifle.

_"Прости мне,"_ I said, and flung it as hard as I could at Yulian’s unsteady form. I couldn’t pay attention to if it connected, not during the precious moment Anatoliy was distracted. Not with the train so close. I half rolled, half crawled away from the tracks, the blast small rocks catching me a second later. I curled up, feeling the pressure of heat and smoke and engine pressing me down into the snow like a heavy hand.

I stayed there, cool and motionless in the snow, until the rumbles faded.

I would have loved to stay put, too, but there was Yulian’s broken voice behind me stuttering out “ _Т-толик?”_

I didn’t want to look, but…Yulian was still a threat, and I had to know where he was.

It wasn’t pretty.

Anatoliy, it seemed, had careened backwards on to the tracks, to avoid my rifle or else because of it, I wasn’t sure. His head was…it looked like he’d been hit. Pulpy red bits, and fragments of skull, and blood was over everything. And the corpse was still _twitching_ , which in turn shook the long strands of thick red and torn skin and the shredded fleshy parts hanging off the ugly break in what was left of his face.

I couldn’t stop staring.

“Oh, god,” Mina broke in.

I couldn’t stop staring. I couldn’t stop staring, but I should have been paying attention, because next thing I knew, Yulian was slamming my own head against the Halbech train wheels. My vision swam.

“ _С кем?!” ”_he demanded, and bashed my head in again. “ _С КЕМ!”_

I tried to focus, to get some words out. My eyes wouldn’t stay put, flicking between Yulian and the body, and then some motion I was sure I was seeing on the roof of a train shed across all the tracks. My head was pounding.

“I- I-” I stumbled, not knowing what I was trying to say.

A second later, I was choking, trying to breath, pain radiating from where Yulian’s fist had connected with my diaphragm.

“ _С ке-”_ Yulian started, then abruptly stopped. He fell to his knees, a white and blue dart almost the size of my hand sticking out from the base of his spine. For a moment, images of Darcy in his Blackhawk spun dizzily through my head, and I gasped, finally working past the knotted pain in my chest. My eyes moved instinctively towards the roof while I worked on catching my breath, but it was only one of Gun Woman’s white snowsuited figure. They glared back at me.

I wouldn’t have noticed them, except the crimson stain soaking their side. Then they bent over, an arm appearing over their shoulder, and helped Gun Woman stand up. I suppose that was where the blood came from. She had a long cut across her exposed midriff, bleeding freely.

“Michael,” she began, voice surprisingly loose and light considering how much blood she’d likely lost. “I did not realize you knew how to kill so well.”

I forced my eyes to stay trained on hers, to stay away from the debris field that was Anatoliy’s head. I had to keep her from the train – she was an enemy, now. Which meant not letting her know how much that barb got to me. Not that it did.

“I don’t like to brag,” I told her.

“And so polite. Maybe I should keep a more careful eye on you.”

“You can try, but you won’t see me until it’s too late. Now,” I said, and lifted Yulian’s pistol from his limp hands, “who hired you to come here to the trainyard?”

She shook her head. “Michael, you need to be more…ah, _subtle_ , I think, when you are asking girls their intentions.”

“I don’t think there’s _anything_ subtle about you.”

“Amen to that,” Mina chimed in over the earpiece.

While Gun Woman didn’t appear to have her overkill Gatling wannabe with her at the moment, I wasn’t interested in playing nice. I leveled Yulian’s pistol at her heart, satisfied by the way her snowsuit crutch bristled defensively. She waved her hand at him casually.

“I think there is much you and I can do in Moscow together,” she said.

“I’m here about Halbech, nothing more.”

She giggled derisively, then winced and pressed a palm to the open wound on her side. Then she laughed again.

“Do not be frightened – you are too proper for my tastes, Michael. I only ask you to think about my offer.”

The snowsuit supporting her shoulder whispered something in her ear, and gestured to the sky. In the distance, a smallish black speck appeared. For one heart-stopping split second, I thought it was another missile, but then the blat-tat-tat of helicopter blades began faintly thrumming through the air. The snowsuit tugged gently.

“I will be in touch, Michael,” she said over her shoulder, as she allowed him to guide her across the roof. “I think we will have much to discuss, you and I.”

“Can’t say I’m looking forward to it!” I shouted to her back, as the noise of the rotors began flooding the air. She shook her free hand dismissively, and disappeared into the haze of snow being kicked up by the descending copter.

“…wasn’t she here for the train?” Mina inquired.

I shrugged, realized Mina couldn’t see that, and then made an ‘eh’ sound. I didn’t know. She was leaving, is all that mattered. And now that I didn’t have to keep an eye on her my eyes were going straight back to Anatoliy’s head. And the red-stained tracks. And the sore teeth-numbing headache radiating from where Yulian had tried to crack my skull open. I sighed, and retrieved my rifle. I closed the Halbech train's doors, and, after a moment’s thought, pocketed Yulian’s silenced pistol.

Fucking trains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 46, 47, 48, 49, and 50  
> ft edits live  
> This mission took fifty freakin' minutes to play through, so, longish as the chapter turned out, I am quite happy with it.  
> Also it should be простите мне but tbh i just like the way прости мне sounds better.


	18. Staff-Captain Rybnikov

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael gets into a fight with Mina

_Half a million in damage to the train station. Probably a high point in my career. Mina has made up her mind to create mission reports. For my non-missions. My I’ve-gone-rogue-so-who-really-cares missions._

It took twenty minutes to make it through the paragraph. I put the pen back down on the island tabletop. If Mina could send mission reports, I could keep a log. The four crumpled up sheets from my four previous attempts to do that suggested otherwise. I tore the one I had been working on free from my journal. Five crumbled up sheets now.

_Well I got into minor league arms dealing this weekend and watched a man get run over by a train so there’s the nightmare fodder for the month. Kudos to me on efficiency._

Make that six.

Mina wasn’t answering my calls. I could go shake Grigori down. Get something in return for the fuckton of armaments I sent his way. I could spend some time clearing Yulian’s pistol. Or my AR.

Or…I could always maybe finally send something to Scarlet. Write up my own report about Halbech’s comings and goings. A note. Something more serious. Clean it up, of course. No need to mention something like the water tower. Or how much of that half-a-million in damage was my fault. Or Anatoliy and Yulian. Did bad guys _have_ families? People who would miss them? They _had_ to. Someone had to miss them. To notice that they were gone. To care, when they dropped off the grid. And wonder.

Maybe I was the only one in the world who knew they were gone.

 

* * *

 

Tuesday

_Grigori thinks I should feel reassured, because the shipment of Halbech weapons was “mostly second tier”. Admittedly, the access key for an off-shore company’s escrow account was…appreciated, given that I still haven’t heard from Mina, and also admittedly, Grigori’s promise to “peddle to gangsters and malcontents that wouldn’t know a quality firearm if it was used to kill them” is… But at least Al-Samad won’t get them. Just street thugs who were going to kill each other anyway. I suppose._

_But enough about Grigori’s email. I made up my mind. I’ve written my report for Scarlet, a report on Halbech trafficking. It’s not the whole explanation. Obviously not. Hey, Scarlet, it’s me, the guy you randomly met on a plane. Oh by the way the world is about to end because of corporate greed, and I swear I saw a train full of guns, and they shot a missile at me but I survived. Just trust me on all that, yeah? No. That’d never do. So here’s my cover._

_Cover Thorton is a disgruntled Halbech ex-employee who was forced to do wrong, and now that he’s got a score to settle, he’s out for blood. Of course, he’s a civvie, so blood might be an exaggeration. Nonetheless, he’s going to right the corporate wrongs, expose the conspiracy, and maybe save the world along the way. A patriot. Of course, before I do all that, I need to figure out what the corporate wrongs are. It can’t just be minor league arms smuggling in Moscow. Maybe…maybe they really did send those missiles to Al-Samad. I know that every bit of evidence points to it being so, but goddamn it, it doesn’t make any sense. As much as I hate to admit it, there were easier ways of getting rid of me than trying to blow me up, and then declaring me rogue. I mean, I get the blowing me up, but rogue? Just let me come back to base and kill me there. Honestly. That I’m alive, here in Russia, pulling their little plans apart at the seams, suggests…_

_Well, maybe he just didn’t have to guts to meet me face to fucking face, huh._

_Lieutenant mobster Lazo might have some of the answers. These are the threads I am working with. Some mob guy may or may not know something about the missiles that once were here in the massive metropolitan city of Moscow. It’s going to be amazing when I pull this off. People will be studying this mission for years._

 

* * *

 

Wednesday

Mina called.

I was in the kitchen. Across the gap between buildings an open house was occurring in what would be a perfect sniper’s nest. I was watching guests mill about and trying not to scratch at the bandages on my arm when the television beeped. I hadn’t heard a more beautiful sound since, well…ever. If it hadn’t been for the splint I was still wearing during downtimes, I would have vaulted over the sofa. As it was, I had to take my time. Not like I was wanting for that.

“Mike. Listen-” she started, before the screen even had a chance to warm up- “I don’t have much time to catch you up to speed, so-”

I sunk back into the hard couch cushions as best I could. Great. What had I been expecting? “Don’t hurry on my account,” I said.

“I don’t think you understand the position you’re in-” she snapped, then cut herself off, and started rubbing circles into her forehead. “Sorry. I’ve just been having a rough time of it. One of my aliases has gotten slated for a _severe_ audit, Darcy’s been driving me up the wall, and cleaning up after Saudi Arabia has been a pain.”

“Didn’t think those missiles left much behind.”

She shrugged. “You would be surprised. It’s been tough to fix, especially now that Darcy won’t let me talk to his contacts. But enough about me. How’ve you been?” she asked, tilted her head, eyes suddenly sickeningly soft, flicking from the splint back to my face.

“Who, me?” I said, and jabbed a thumb at my chest. I dug it in a little more than was probably necessary, and the injured tracks in my arm responded with complaining sore pain.

Yet another constant remined.

Like she wanted to know any of that.

“I’m having loads of fun out here,” I said, biting back on feeling bitter.

“Are you su-”

“You know how the IRS is having some budget funding problems this year?” I interrupted.

“What does that have to do with-”

“Fortunately for you, it means they don’t have the manpower to investigate the top of the top.”

“Mike, can you just-”

“So if you claim your alias made a ton of money…”

She threw up her hands. “Fine, we don’t have to talk about you right now. But...next time you get a minute, shoot me an email, and let me know how you’re _actually_ doing, okay?”

Mm-hm. Just send a message straight off to Alpha Protocol. Coded transmissions on the TV were one thing, but an actual letter, well, that was a great idea! I smiled blankly, not even willing to pretend I was going to do something that stupid.

That earned a slow, frustrated head-shake. “Mike, I can’t help you if won’t talk to me.”

It took every ounce of my finely-honed discipline to keep my hand from the remote.

“Aren’t we were short on time?” I asked. “And I haven’t even started explaining Scarlet yet.”

“Who?”

“You’d better sit down. You’re not going to like this.”

 

I explained Scarlet as quickly as I could. Well, perhaps not as quickly as I could have. It was more satisfying than I would ever have admitted out loud to watch the softness drain from Mina’s eyes, to be replaced first by suspicion, then annoyance, and finally downright anger when I reached the part about sending a report off to an unknown civilian photojournalist.

“What were you _thinking_!? This could compromise our entire mission! Not to mention get her killed!”

“Read her works. She can handle risks. And what exactly do you mean, _our_ mission?” I added, before I could stop myself.

Mina froze, lips already open to deliver her next indictment. They moved wordlessly now.

Something like fire hit my system as I watched her struggle and then fail to validate that one little word, _our_. Maybe it was the way she was staring, shocked, disbelieving. Hurt. Vulnerable. I held my fingers up in the air and starting ticking them down, one at a time.

“ _I_ got us funds for our ‘mission’. _I_ got Grigori to give us intel. Locations. Data!” Her lips stopped gaping. It didn’t matter anymore. Missed calls and torn up logs and it didn’t matter anymore because the dizziness came shockingly fast. “I would _love_ to be worrying about Sean-fucking-Darcy and tax write-offs, but instead _I_ was out there in a _goddamn_ _train yard_ getting shot at by _who the fuck knows who_ -”

“The VCI-” she interrupted, quietly.

“-the V-C- _I could give a shit_ , because I’m pretty sure that when Halbech drops another missile on my head, my dead corpse is gonna count as pretty _compromising!_ _”_

I paused, my own shout ringing in my ears. Then I remembered I should probably breathe, because I wasn’t sure I had in a while, and my heart was racing.

“So if this really is an ‘us’ thing,” I said, the breathing not helping me sound less hostile, “you’re gonna have to trust that when _I_ say we need a contingency plan, and that Scarlet Lake is a good one, I know what I’m talking about. Because I _do_ understand the position I’m in. I’m not just going to get a slap on the wrist if this all falls apart, and we are _two seconds_ away from failing at any given moment.

“Actually,” I corrected, “Two seconds might be optimistic.”

Mina stayed silent. Her eyes betrayed nothing. Smooth. Alert. And no fidgeting. Not like me. I was shaking.

“There. I’m done now,” I finished, uncomfortably aware of how warm my skin was at the moment.

“If you want me to trust you about Scarlet,” she started slowly, as if she was pulling the words out individually from somewhere deep inside, “then I want you to trust that this really is an ‘us’ thing. That I care about this mission too, that I’m doing everything I can to keep the agency off your trail. And that I’m in the same boat as you, Michael. If Westridge catches on to _either_ of us, that’s it for _both_ of us.”

There were traces of things in her face that I’d missed before. Frazzled ends of hair sticking out of her ponytail. Lines under her eyes. The background – stained, rusty pipes. Dim lights. Broken down computer equipment. It seemed like Alpha Protocol had a basement. The anger didn’t dissipate – that would have been too easy. Instead, there was fury with one heartbeat, and ice dread guilt with the other.

“By the way,” she said, “next time I ask you how you’re doing, don’t bullshit me. Got it?”

“Yes,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

“Good. Now, since we’ve burned through most our time, I’m going to need the floor. Are we good?”

“…yes.”

“Great.”

 

* * *

 

Thursday Morning

_I had a dream yesterday that I was playing with my childhood dog, this big, fluffy, golden retriever mutt rescue dog Freddie, and we were playing fetch in the yard. Sean Darcy was there, but I don’t know what he was doing, just petting the dog, I think. And the grass was green, and the dusk sky was purple, and the air was cool and thick with the sounds of grasshoppers and cicadas, and I ran my fingers through Freddie’s tangled fur, and Sean ran his fingers through my bloody hair, and said my name, and everything was-_

_Until I woke up, of course, and I remembered I never had a dog as a kid. Mom was allergic. And then when I moved out, by then it was too late, because I was an agent by then and you can’t. You just can’t. You know, going in, there will be a day when you won’t come home and I just couldn't do that to a dog. But I always wanted one._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mikey buddy y r u spending so much time thinking that yulian is dead he only got tranq'd after all  
> ah well  
> im sure he'll never show up again
> 
> Day 52, 53, 54, 55, and 58  
> ft edits live


	19. On Official Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we're on a boat. In which an elusive agency is encountered, a mission does not go according to plan, and a teenager with gun because I guess that's what kids are into these days?

_\------------------------_

Thursday, 2/28, 22:51,

Lazo’s Yacht

Moscow

_\------------------------_

The boat was empty. It wasn’t empty. But everyone on it was drunk or dazed or stunned enough, it could have been empty and no one could have told the difference. One guy thought I was a ghost. Wanted my autograph to prove to his _бабушка_ that his religious revival was real. I hit him upside the head with a bottle of vodka, and jammed the broken-off bottom half into his neck, under his chin.

I crossed quickly across the deck. The boat – yacht – had a fading broken name painted all over it – _победа_ , and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what the word meant. Mina didn’t speak Russian.

“You good?” she said. She was exhausted. You could hear it in the way her voiced folded, and tore, and trailed off into yawns on the few occasions she’d chosen to speak up.

“Good enough.” I flung the top half of the bottle off the side boat, and waited to see how long it took to land. It spun in the heavy air, moonlight reflecting off the glass and in clear drops of alcohol before everything splashed into the agitated navy black waters of the river, blood dissipating among frigid patches of thin ice. The air consumed the sound and promised snow again. Again.

 

* * *

 

Lazo’s cronies were passed out inside, in various states of incoherent happiness or sadness. I was glad they’d mostly taken care of themselves. If I wanted to use Yulian’s pistol, I’d have to peel my gloves off. It was cold enough for metal to burn, right now. Mina had questioned my decision not to wear a hat, instead of something even slightly more reasonable, and, to her credit, she hadn’t laughed yet, or said “ _I told you so”._

They were _mostly_ passed out, though. Some weren’t.

I hoisted the young man – not a day over 21, couldn’t be – up off the floor, and pushed him into the arcade machine, one gloved fist balled up five inches from his nose. The glove took away some of the effect, but even here, inside, away from the wind, it was bitter cold.

“ _I will tell you nothing!”_ he spat in Russian, childish defiance written in the way that, even though he shouted, and squirmed, it wasn’t enough. A truly dangerous person…you don’t hold them down with the mere threat of injury. Judging by the number of partially finished bottles rolling gently around the floor of the arcade where he’d been sitting, this was liquid courage, and not the kind that lasted. I tightened my fist a little, ignoring the light protesting pain from Anatoliy’s scratching, and tapped lightly on the kid’s cheekbone. His defiance melted away shockingly fast.

“ _He’s downstairs! With the women!”_ he howled, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

The tears welled, sudden confusion unable to stop them. Not my intention. This next part wasn’t fun.

 _“Wh-wha?”_ he said, watching my motions with a frantic energy in his eyes.

Yulian’s pistol was as freezing burning cold in my fingers as I had thought it might be. But it had a silencer, and that was good. Not that anyone could have heard the shot over the music pumping and spilling and erupting from the lower decks on the yacht. No wonder they felt the need to be way out here in the middle of the river.

 “I looked it up, Mike.” Mina said, once I’d turned my earpiece back on. “I think it means ‘victory’. Odd name for a boat.”

And Mina was right. _Победа_ really was a strange name for a yacht.

 

* * *

 

Clothes and shoes were strewn about everywhere, coating the ground below decks, accompanied by a thick layer of smoke in the air. Music swam through it all, an incessant pressure that you would have to be as drunk as the forms tumbling through it all to enjoy. The red and purple and blue lights pulsed erratically, casting deep shadows behind upended gambling tables and sofas and walls. I was just one more shape, bumping up against swaying figures, both collapsing but only one getting up again.

Lazo himself, pale, hairy skin barely covered by a silk robe, was at the nexus of the listless chaos, a trail of red leather stilettos leading to the small feet of his evening companions. They may have been the only two sober people I’d seen on the whole boat. Better guards than the guards, because they saw me the moment my shadow cut across the floor. They didn’t care, though. Until I got the gun out.

“ _Lazo, you’re under-”_ I started, when they screamed, and with a panicked _oh shit_ , Lazo took off though a doorway.

We were two phantoms, him bumping off walls as he tripped over bodies, silk billowing behind him. Me, gliding in his wake, and trying not to breath too much of the whatever it was they’d been doing belowdecks. When he reached the winter air outside, it was hard and knifelike, but it was a relief.

Lazo’s balance finally failed him, and he hit the deck next to brain-splattered head of one of his ex-guards, his eyes level with the hole in the other man’s forehead.

“ _I’m here to talk-”_ but he was already scrabbling for the bottle in the curled up fingers of the dead man. He flung it at my head. I ducked, but in the second it took he rolled and began clawing his way up my legs, pulling me down beside him.

 _This_ was a desperate man. He dug his nails into the fabric of my stealth uniform, ripping a long tear, all the while propelling his heavily-booted feet into my legs. One connected with my injured shin, and I choked on ice air. He fastened a hand on the empty pistol holster on my chest, drug himself into a sitting position, and then threw all his weight and all his drug-induced strength into a forearm across my throat.

Drug-induced _strength_. Not smarts. Even dizzy from the smoke, and the running, and from the immediate, overwhelming need to try and force some air past Lazo’s arm, I kept hold of Yulian’s pistol.

One look would have shown him the pistol shifting to point at his head. But he was too busy pressing, wild eyes staring me down. He snarled and leaned even more in anticipation, and the gun went off, blood everywhere, all over my face and I could open my eyes again, sucking in the sweet, beautiful crystal air.

Lazo gasped once more, then slumped down. I pushed the body to the side. One body on one side, one on the other, and a painful number of stars above.

Why was I here?

I mean, what had I hoped to gain? The missiles were gone, gone gone gone. So was Shaheed. The hot blood on my face cooled quickly in the night, as did the puddle rapidly spreading from Lazo’s body towards my own arms. The stars in the sky were millions of degrees in temperature, and yet. It was so cold outside. I didn’t know any constellations but the Big Dipper and I regretted it right now. Why was I here?

“The mission, Mike,” Mina said.

“What?” I said.

“The mission,” she said. “With Lazo gone, we still might be able to pull some data off the computers.”

I sat up, Lazo’s thick blood rolling slowly off my hair down my spine, dripping on my uniform, falling back down to the puddle, and on and on and on. My leg ached, again. Aching where Lazo (gone) had kicked it, where some Al-Samad guy (long gone) had shot it, where Sean Darcy (as good as gone) had patched it up. Everything over. Why was I _here_?

The mission?

World War III?

The mission.

End of the world.

Nuclear apocalypse nation.

The mission, goddamn it.

Get up.

“Where are the computers?” I asked, and I got up.

 

* * *

 

Weather patterns, GPS records, radio message printouts.

“This is good, Mike, we can use this to-”

Static rang out, loud and sharp and painful.

I reached my fingers back up to tap the earpiece, and they brushed up against a wet gun barrel.

Impossible.

I hadn’t missed anyone. No one.

I turned my head.

_G22._

There was no doubt.  Red uniform that was a disturbing cross between a diving suit and a space suit, four-directional blue goggles, full metal face plate. Alien. Unmistakable. The illegals, the rogues, the _real_ phantoms, an international terrorist organization with no boundaries, no rules, or so I’d heard, because you didn’t just meet G22 and walk away.

More footsteps. I twisted around very, _very_ cautiously to see another UC AK Jackal and another G22 operative.

The G22s said nothing. Their rifles were fixed on me. The bulky lines of their suits – were they tense? Relaxed? The face plate, too – I couldn’t read them.

I waited, and didn’t move. They waited, and didn’t shoot me. They kept both their guns level and I tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t get me killed.

The boat swayed, we swayed along, and then a teenager walked in.

 “Uh,” I said, without meaning to.

She did not look much like a G22 agent. She had on ripped, distressed jeans. Black hoodie with crimson scrolls and fleurs-de-lis. Jagged black hair with a vibrant maroon streak. And to top off the ‘rebellious’ look – a small lip piercing, two silver pistols tucked into her pants, and a gigantic glittering belt buckle that loudly proclaimed **TEXAS**.

The teenager sighed, and swirled her pointer finger around the air, waltzing back the way she came. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any stranger, G22 _followed_ her. Even the one with their gun to my head.

“Lazo has been terminated,” they said, voice sounding unnatural and robotic through their mask. “Move out.”

All three people moved simultaneously, feet making no noise and it was so _bizarre_ , so what-the-fuck-just-happened, so “did I breathe in too much of that air downstairs” that I followed them out of the pilothouse too.

“What the hell is going on here?” I asked.

Teenager turned, two snub nose revolvers appearing in her ungloved hands, and shit hit the fan.

I was shooting almost before I knew there was hostile fire. It wasn’t fast enough. I shot and there was a mechanical screech – but something hit me – pinpricks, like little gnats. I dropped my gun, was this the deck? Footsteps, two pairs of red and black boots, or maybe one – merging, separating. Double vision?  Hand on my back. Cold.

 

* * *

 

When I came to, I was draped over the shoulder of a G22 agent, cheek resting uncomfortably against some pouches on their belt.

 _Tranqs_. Goddamn it.

I peeked an eye open quickly. We were still on the boat. Behind me, the kid dragged the limp form of the second agent – I’d hit someone, then – all walking towards the rail, towards the rattling cough of a small engine from off the side.

Someone must have turned off the music while I was out, because the only other noises were the lapping of the waves, and the metallic moaning of the G22 I’d injured. Still, and quiet. Time to fix that.

I counted footsteps, waiting until my agent reached the side. They fastened their free hand on the ladder, and started hoisting themselves over. I waited until my swaying hands connected with the railing. Then I grabbed it wrenched myself off the arm of the G22. As best as I could while hanging there, I drove my feet into their back. It looked terrible, but it worked. The G22 dropped into the water, and I hauled myself back over the rail.

Where was the leader?

Nothing on deck but chairs and turned over card tables, and copious amounts of alcohol. And bodies. But-

I dropped, bullets whizzing overhead and ruffling my hair, instinct driving me flat on the deck, instinct moving the rifle from its position on my back into my hand, all on instinct because I was _off my game right now_ , G22 getting the drop on me, and getting tranq’d, and now this.

The leader of the G22 rose from a cluster of corpses and darted and jumped across the deck towards me. I aimed a line of bullets at her, but she was fast, or smart, or both.

Then she was returning the favor, and I was rolling and dodging. I stumbled and bumped into the form of the injured G22 agent. The girl skidded to a near-stop feet away from me, her shots slowed considerably, and I had an idea.

I placed the barrel of the rifle on the G22’s shoulder, closed my eyes, and fired.

They screamed, the pitch of it overloading whatever voice synthesizers those masks had. It emitted high-pitched violent white noise. The teenager’s gunshots stopped. I stood up, pulled the G22 up by the torn arm, and poked the malfunctioning faceplate with my gun.

“What,” I called out, “nothing to say?”

And when I got only silence and a stony face in return, I twisted the G22’s arm a little. The white noise shriek intensified again. The girl’s face set into a grimace.

“Drop your guns,” I said, and jerked the arm again. She complied, grimace deepening into a fury-tinged, narrowed eye, teeth grinding frown.

Good. Now…

I dropped the G22, and shifted my aim towards the girl.

“I want to know what you’re doing here,” I said.

She was silent, glare softening only when she looked down at the crying G22.

“Who sent you?”

She stared, then went back to keeping her eyes focused on the bleed-out happening under my feet. The crying was subsiding slowly, but noticeably. Bit by bit.

“Who are you?”

This time, she didn’t bother looking up.

I looked at the mess spreading across the deck.

It’d need more than simple pressure on the wound. I could tourniquet it. But that would take two hands. And would be a waste of time. My mission here was to get intel out of Lazo, and get the hell out of there, and not get seen. And that meant this G22 was going to die. And the girl, probably, and I _should_ go take care of the hookers downstairs, because yeah they were civilians, but they were civilians with _eyes_ -

There was still static on the comm, and yet I could still here Mina’s voice, from somewhere far away, saying, _the_ larger _mission_.

End of the world. World War III. Protecting people.

I tried very hard not to look around the deck at all the frost-covered bodies, but that, of course, meant either looking at the girl’s concerned, angry face, or else the slick, shiny fabric and splintered bone fragments.

_Nu blin._

“Don’t move,” I told the girl, injecting menace into my tone and counting on my bloody hair and tissue-splattered face and the slight blue that had to be forming on my exposed fingers to do the rest.

I laid my pistol down carefully, and tried to rip part of the G22’s uniform up, for tourniquet material. The stuff didn’t budge. I was considering my next move, when the girl’s hand darted to her jacket.

“Hey!” I shouted, my pistol back in hand in an instant. Stupid, stupid idiot. “Make another move, and I’ll have to fire.”

She continued to move, fumbling for something around her neck. She met my eyes with a clear stare that reflected the calm moonlight, and she kept moving. I brought the rifle to bear on her forehead. My hand was shaking, and she could see it, goddamn it.

“I said,” I said, and she smiled, because even though my finger was tightening on the trigger, it was getting hard to breathe again, Lazo’s arm on my throat again, and any half-decent agent could have seen it, I didn’t want to kill this girl. She was a _kid_. She was just a kid.

Who could have a revolver in her jacket.

In one swift moment, she yanked a chain off her neck, and my finger connected with the trigger, but I just couldn’t do it, not for the mission, not for, and the shot went wide, cracking open the thin ice air.

She looked at me, with wide eyes, and in her open hand was a dull silver locket. She dropped it on the ground, and slid it over to me, eyes flicking not to the G22, but to something over my own shoulder. I followed her gaze, straight into the barrel of a large sniper rifle. Positioned inches from the back of my head. Held by one soaking wet G22 agent. Who…lowered it?

In front of me, the girl stood up. The G22 looped an arm around their injured companion, and started carefully carrying them over to the side. The girl darted past me in a burst of speed, and vaulted the edge.

“Wait– hey!” I shouted, and then the last two G22 disappeared over the side.

“Mike?” said a wonderfully solid voice on my earpiece. “Are you there?”

I bent down to scoop up the locket. It looked old, antique, even. The thing was almost as large as my palm. Etchings on the front and carvings that wound all the way around depicted someone, a knight, fighting off a winged serpent.

“I’m here,” I said, as a loud roaring from the side of the boat indicated the departure of the G22. I thought about running over, getting a few more shots off, but there was the issue of that sniper rifle.

And this locket.

“Someone was jamming the frequency,” Mina reported, only the faintest trace of alarm showing through in the way her voice was higher than normal. “Are you all right? What happened?”

I rubbed a finger over the carvings, the numbness making it hard to find with my hand the details I was seeing with my eyes. I needed my gloves. But they were in the arcade, along with the body of the other kid I’d met today, not so much a kid, but…

“I’m not sure,” I told her, and I didn’t quite know which question I was answering.

“I need to get out of here,” I told her, “I’ll fill you in later.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good-”

I didn’t mute her. I turned the whole thing off, and sat down, back to the side of the boat, listening to the sound of the water.

And I sat, and I listened, until I couldn’t feel my hands at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 56, 57, 59, 60
> 
> FINALLY i fixed this one a little. god this is why i dont look at things i wrote two years ago. anyway:  
> ft edits live
> 
> boat


	20. «Идешь, на меня похожий»

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finally meet G22 and Birdemic himself.  
> Also, in which I am no longer allowed to write summaries because *apparently* they aren't serious enough anymore. I was doin' fine, thank you.

Home sweet home.

I was pulling off gear the moment I hit the door, exchanging guns and my shoulder pads and winter gear for the blanket I’d left on the console table. I waited until Mina’s voice transferred itself from my earbud to the television to pull my earpiece off with my palms – fingers were still on the fritz. The house place was freezing. At least the storm had cleared up. Clear moonlight shone through the windows.

“What I don’t understand,” Mina said, distracted by the multiple printouts she kept holding up to her face, “is _why_? This data…Lazo wasn’t a significant target.”

“Maybe they wanted to meet me,” I said, distracted by the kitchen, the microwave, and the stove, and the coffee pot. Really, anything that could be used to make something warm, right now. No alcohol in the house. Stupid, stupid rule, made by a stupid, younger idealistic me. Fuck you, me.

“G22 doesn’t just _meet_ people, Mike,” Mina chided, but her heart wasn’t really in it.

I got some hot water started, without even the slightest clue what I was going to do with eventually. Something, for sure.

“What have you found out about the locket?” I asked, tearing my attention away and back towards Mina.

“The locket? That’s where things get interesting. See – I think I know who it belongs to, and–”

I grabbed my ears. The tortured shrieking emitting from the television cut through my attempts to block it with no effort, but I couldn’t force my hands away to grab the remote and mute it. Then, as quickly as the sound started, it ceased. Except instead of showing papers and maroon hair flying about as Mina dug through her files, the screen held an older, pinched-face white guy with thick, rounded black glasses, a militant buzz cut, and a thick, warm looking green and orange scarf.

Then another figure moved onscreen, squared shoulders and upright posture visible even through the bulky red suit and stiff metal faceplate.

“Great.” G22. What are the odds. “You guys again. And I take it you’re the leader?”

He frowned. Or, rather, his face looked like it was permanently set into a frown, and this was how he usually looked at people. The G22 behind him shifted impatiently.

“I ran into a little friend of yours tonight, hanging out with your G22 buddies,” I said.

His expression changed not a single bit.

“She didn’t talk much either,” I allowed. “Except with those pistols of hers.”

“That would be my bodyguard, Sis,” he broke out suddenly, voice dry, lines on his face tightening. “And I know you spared her life. That’s why I’m calling.”

I almost didn’t answer, only sat there, blinking at him. That _child_ _?_ A bodyguard?

I could feel my fingers just barely enough to know they were twitching.

“I didn’t want to fight her,” I said, after a pause. “I was only there for Lazo. But she didn’t give me much choice.”

Why was I trying to apologize to this guy? To this guy who sent a child out to…to do what, exactly?

“It was under my orders, Mike.” Yep. My fingers were definitely okay now. I flexed them, and grabbed the edge of the blanket instead. “But I didn’t realize you would be there, else…I would have instructed Sis to behave differently.”

His tone was even, stiff, clinical. He reminded me of Parker. And not in a good way.

“Should I ask what G22 is doing in Moscow?” I asked, itching more and more to hang up and me done with this. “You guys sure seem to get around.”

“It’s a rather…” he started, looking into the distance as he played around with his words, “long answer, Michael. One I’d like to discuss more, if you’d be up to it.”

I prepared to tell him to fuck off when something hit me, like bad note.

He knew my name.

He knew my _name_. He knew my name, and, now that I thought about it, he’d said it earlier, too. When he was talking about Sis, and I was distracted. How did he know who I was? How did he know _where_ I was?

How the _fuck_ did he know how to contact me? Forget blown cover – this was a new level.

Then a worse thought.

“Is your bodyguard invited?” I asked, not focused, a little dazed by the implication. If G22 could find me, if I was findable, then Alpha Protocol could find me. And if they could find me, they would. I couldn’t focus. My fingers were warm but the rest of me wasn’t, I was hungry and tired and the back of my head was aching and itchy from where there was still dried blood.

“I’m afraid it’s required she be present,” the man said, unperturbed by anything and everything. “We’re not supposed to be apart. It’s how G22 operates in the field. But like you, I tend to bend the rules for the sake of the greater good. I’ll leave the choice up to you, but I can’t wait long. If you want to discuss your future, then meet me at the following coordinates.”

On the couch, my PDA let out a merry chirp.

I could hope and beg that it hadn’t been compromised by G22, but at this point, I didn’t think hoping was going to do much.

“It isn’t far,” the guy continued, monotonously, “And come alone.”

“All right,” I said. As if I had a choice. I didn’t look at him. The PDA’s lit-up screen projected blue light onto the ceiling. “But I better not be walking into an ambush. And tell ‘Sis’ to keep her distance.”

“I will do so,” he acknowledged, and nodded curtly. “I’ll not wait long, Michael – so if you want to speak to me, you’ll have to do it soon.”

The screen clicked off abruptly, but was back on almost immediately.

“What was-”

“G22,” I said. Explanation enough.

Silence.

“They know my _name_ , Mina, and it’s not Grigori, because they know where I am-”

“What did he look like?” she interrupted, leaning forward, urgency flattening her lips into a thin line.

“He – wait, how did you know it was a-”

“An older man? Stern? Glasses, some kind of scarf?”

I leaned back into the counter. Shockingly, my stomach still had room for yet another bad feeling.

“Michael, that was-” Mina sighed, and ran a hand over her eyelids.

Why oh why did I get the feeling I was about to head back out at whatever hellish hour it was to go tango with G22?

“I’ll send you the file, Mike, but…listen, what did he tell you?”

“Who is he?”

She sighed again, and ran her fingers over her hair like she desperately wished there were loose strands she could spend a moment tucking out of sight. Then she got ready to do it again, taking a deep breath and-

“Mina.”

“I could be wrong…” she admitted cautiously. The bad feeling upgraded to alarm. Mina, justifying? “…but I’m pretty sure you just met the leader of G22’s Moscow cell. A pretty important leader, possibly even one of the actual people in charge of the larger G22.”

My mouth was moving, but nothing was coming out. My brain was failing to deliver anything to it.

Mina ran with it.

“The girl you met on the boat, with the locket? Her name is-”

“-Sis,” I finished, squeaking the one syllable out with more difficulty than I would have thought possible.

“So it _is_ Albatross…” Mina said, softly. I almost didn’t catch it over the static buzzing that had taken over my headspace.

“You- how- _who_?” I needed a nap, bad. Too long of a mission, too late at night, because none of it was making the slightest bit of sense.

“His name is Albatross, Mike, and he’s dangerous. What did he want with you?” she said, much more clearly, forcefully, so much so her voice cut through the static.

“He wanted to thank me for sparing Sis. And…”

I hesitated. Not so much that she wouldn’t like what _he’d_ said, but that she definitely wouldn’t like what _I’d_ said.

“Well?” she demanded.

“He _may_ have wanted to meet with me. To talk. Alone.”

I thought Mina had been silent before. Ha. She opened her mouth, closed it again, a stray paper falling off her desk without her so much as batting an eye.

“So much for ‘G22 doesn’t just meet people?’” I offered weakly.

That was a very interesting color of red starting to appear on her face.

“Agent Thorton,” she said, with a low hissing noise that was, frankly, terrifying. “What, exactly, did you say to him?”

“Who says I said anything?”

“ _Michael_.”

“We-ell…” I started, wishing I was a kid that could just go hide in a blanket fort and wait for his problems to disappear. “He’d already gone through the trouble of sending the co-ordinates…”

A pause, and then a loud, very loud, sigh from the direction of the television.

“Michael,” Mina’s voice said, deceptively sweet.

“It’s not like I _have_ to go-”

“Mike.”

I looked out. Mina wore a tight, thin smile that looked like it was taking a great deal of effort to sustain.

“That was stupid,” she said, barely moving her lips.

“I-”

“Just so we’re clear – you agreed to meet, alone, with a G22 leader you didn’t know anything about, and his bodyguard, who has already tried to kill you. Not forgetting, of course, that you are an internationally wanted rogue agent. And, you screwed up these people’s mission.  Also, they know who you are and where you live. And finally, you did all this without so much as checking with your handler, who, I don’t know, may have had important intel on the situation.”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice-”

“No, it’s fine. I do want you to understand, though. Next time you say ‘trust me’ about Scarlet, or a mission, or anything…I want you to know where I’m coming from, Michael.

“Now,” she said, and shook her head clear, assuming a collected demeanor that was all the more impressive for the way her mouth had been a literal line a moment ago. “ _When_ did he want to meet? This week? Next week? Tell me you bought us some time.”

I laughed nervously.

 

\------------------------

Thirty minutes later

Friday, 2/29, 3:12,

Moscow Park

\------------------------

The gigantic statue of some long dead Russian loomed over the empty park. Snow covered the placard. I wasn’t inclined to leave any further proof of my presence by wiping it off, but the curiosity was killing me.

Not much else I could do but stand around and freeze to death. Halbech didn’t even need to bother with me Freezing, miserable winter-bound ice hell place. I was never complaining about snow back home again.

I was never going home again.

Good point.

Footsteps, crunching lightly in the shoe. Yulian’s pistol was in hand, I was spinning around to point it before I could remind myself that civilians like parks too. Fortunately, it was the punk girl from the boat. Unfortunately, she had both pistols in hand, and was mirroring my own threat.

“I don’t want to shoot you,” I said, evenly this time. “But pull that trigger, and I will.”

She smiled, but kept them trained, until from behind, another set of footsteps, and Albatross’ voice.

“It's all right, Sis. Hello, Mike.”

The man’s hand hovered over my shoulder, looking for a moment like he was going to pat it and get himself shot. He saw the weapon in my hand, and instead thought better of it.

“No trouble finding the place, I hope?” he asked, warmly. Disconcerting, compared to the monotonous man of only a little while ago. He didn’t _seem_ that dangerous. ‘course that didn’t mean jack shit.

G22 was on more international watchlists than I knew about.

Of course – membership having its benefits and all – I was beginning to learn that those kind of lists were less reliable than one might believe.

“No,” I told him. “I was curious why you wanted to talk to in person – telemarketing through the video screen seemed more your style.”

“Sometimes. At the moment, I'd rather show a little more trust in each other. You spared Sis’s life-”

Sis bit her lip at that, frowned at the snow, then started a protective loop around the statue.

“-and for that, you have my thanks,” he finished, with a nod at her.

“I have something of hers,” I said. Yulian’s pistol wasn’t the only thing I’d come armed with.. I held it out, but in Sis’s direction. “Here.”

She looked surprised, stopped her circuit for a minute to shake her head vehemently.

“Did she give that to you?” Albatross asked, voice so sharp my eyes snapped from Sis to him without prompting.

“I see,” he continued, without so much waiting for a nod from Sis or I. The tension was everywhere, in the slits of his eyes, the way Sis was no longer making long, easy strides, but instead, small, measured ones. In the sudden way his shoulders showed even through his wool coat.

Interesting.

“That…the locket is a childhood memento,” he explained. “…perhaps those days are gone.”

Sis left the circuit alone, and made her way over to stand somewhat in front of Albatross, in between he and I, and he looked down at her, ghost of a smile present.

“Regardless, thank you for sparing her life. The gratitude comes from both of us, it seems.”

He seemed ready to let it go. I wasn’t.

“According to what I've been able to dig up on you two, she’s your bodyguard. If anyone should be saving someone’s life, it’s her.”

“That is correct.”

“Intel suggests she’s an orphan – that you’re _not_ related.”

He nodded appreciatively. “I see you’ve been able to access Interpol records, Agent Thorton. I thought I’d wiped those clean.”

Agent Thorton, huh? _Two can play that game_. _I know who you are, as well._

If he wanted to play ‘who’s the better doublespeaker,’ I was happy to concede.

I had something slightly better than half-meant words, anyway.

“I’m thorough,” I said. “But…if she’s your bodyguard, “why did you send her to Lazo’s yacht? Isn’t she supposed to be protecting you? She could have been killed, you know.”

He looked at me, blankly, as if this was no concern of his. Or, rather, that it was but he was choosing not to care. Beside him, Sis fidgeted uncomfortably, reaching for where her locket used to be. I’d promised Mina I wouldn’t say anything dumb, and I had a point to being here than lay elsewhere, but every time I looked over at the kid…she _was_ a kid, and he was standing there like she couldn’t have been shot, couldn’t have bled-out on some drug-dealing Russian’s party boat. Couldn’t have been killed.

“That’s no way to treat some you care about,” I finished my thought out loud, nothing but vapor coming from Albatross, staring, vapor, and nothing, and vapor, and nothing. He was absolutely calm, and I could see I was not, little quick puffs of frost despite my best attempts, but I promised Mina, so I reigned it in.

“That’s no way to treat a child,” I said, trying to tamp down on the rising anger, fighting to keep my hand from my jacket, and the pistol, which would end unfortunately for someone. Probably me. I didn’t want to kill Sis, and I didn’t want to make her a murderer. And I suppose I didn’t want to shoot Albatross, either.

Well, maybe a little. If I was being honest. Not fatally. Just…inconveniently.

“Sis would not be here today if not for me, Agent Thorton,” he said, the vapid logic unimpressive. “The world is cruel in many respects, and every day we survive we have gambled against death and won. Perhaps…perhaps Sis is not a child anymore, to throw away childhood mementos so carelessly.”

“That locket-” I interrupted, because Sis was looking down at the ground very intently, chaffing under the passive-aggressive scolding, and I wanted to listen to Mina’s advice, I swear I did, but he was getting to me, bad.

“It’s _not_ a childhood memento,” I finished, taking the chance to look at it rather than them. The silver gleamed dully.

“ _Excuse_ me?” he said.

“The locket - it depicts Saint George and the Dragon. According to legend,” I elaborated, watching Sis perk up a little, and cast smallish glances over at me, “townsfolk fed their children to the dragon out of fear to prevent its wrath. Eventually, the king agreed to feed his own daughter to the beast.”

“I’m not sure I like the implication, Agent Thorton.” His voice was dangerously low, a complete 180 from the near robot on the TV.

“I wasn’t aware there was one,” I fired back. “I’m guessing only she knows how Saint George factors in…but I’m wondering who G22 is in the story – and who you are.”

The tension was back, Albatross moving one arm slightly in front of Sis and pulling her ever so carefully away from me. Despite his arm, though, Sis was actually starting to smile, a little, not that he seemed to notice.

I gestured to her with a small wave. “I’m sure Sis could clear it up – if she wanted to tell us, that is.”

Her eyes widened with pleasant surprise and she looked up, for all intents seeming quite interested in doing so. But Albatross cut her off sharply.

“She can’t.”

“Can’t – or won’t?”

“She’s a mute.” His voice was quiet, melted into the falling snow, but carried absolute certainty. As if, somehow, being mute precluded communication.

“Let’s walk,” he declared, before I had a chance to enlighten him. “Sis will make sure we’re not interrupted.”

He walked off as if sure I would follow, which made one of us. I looked back at Sis, and she smiled – funny how you could be ready to shoot someone one day, and then ready to shoot someone for them the next – so I went after him. Mina would be over the moon.

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked him, as he strolled around the base of the statue.

“I know to all outwards appearances you’re a rogue agent,” he said, without preamble, or looking back. “I also know about Alpha Protocol, and in your case, it’s being used for its intended purpose.”

This was a guy used to being followed. He stopped me in my tracks, and he didn’t even notice.

“It…wasn’t my choice, really. One of my associates made the decision for me.”

A few feet in front of me, Albatross halted too.

“I disagree,” he said confidently, “You had _other_ options, I’m sure. Did enacting Alpha Protocol change your mission?”

 “…no?” I said.

“Then you should be proud of your accomplishment.”

“ _What_ accomplishment?”

He paused, a spasm afflicting his smile. When he did speak, it was gentle, almost as if I wasn’t even there. “It is not often that one gets the chance to turn the tools of their own government against them – and for the right reasons.”

Then he shook his attitude off like the snowflakes gathering on his shoulders. “And Alpha Protocol – it is a powerful tool.”

“Between Halbech and you…I’m beginning to feel like everyone knows about Alpha Protocol.”

“It may seem that way. I’d argue you’re simply traveling in a smaller circle here, on the fringe on international politics.”

He fell silent, and we left more footprints in the snow behind us. The park must be beautiful in the summer. Winding path, bending trees, metal benches. He said nothing and I got left with my thoughts about the empty snowed in park. I wonder if I’ll ever get to see it. Maybe I’ll come back one day. Maybe G22 knows something about Halbech. Maybe Lazo did. Maybe when I get home I would just fall asleep on the floor. The puffy winter hat I’d found in the closet and had been forcefully persuaded to wear hid the dried blood on my head, but I couldn’t exactly go to bed like that. In this weather, washing my hair and going outside was a hard no. So maybe, when I got back…

Of course, maybe G22 wasn’t planning on the “letting me go back home” bit.

Beside me, Albatross seemed perfectly content to study the snowflakes and let me stew in my own thoughts, as if he wasn’t the one who’d called the meeting in the first place.

“I don’t know what you want.” I broke the silence as Albatross reached out to capture a falling flake on one gloved palm. “G22’s agenda…doesn’t seem like you have one.”

He stuck his hands back in his pockets, stringing the words together not like something memorized verbatim, but something he’d known by heart once, and then forgotten. “No. We have aspirations, as does any government. But we believe that agendas are accomplished by careful study and observation. It the status quo is disrupted…it makes predicting triggers and events more…difficult.”

“You sound like one of the analysts of Alpha Protocol I know.”

“Alpha Protocol has always had someone in that role. It helps them function as intended, no matter what iteration of the program. It’s…an odd thing – a government sponsored program whose purpose is to prevent being policed by its own government. Now, what kind of foundation is that for a country?”

It stung, and I didn’t know why.

“I guess you have to trust your country, and act in its best interests.”

“Do _you_ trust your country?”

He rose his eyebrow as if it was an easy question, even though on a good day, it was far from it. Still, I didn’t hesitate.

“I do. I believe in the mission.”

And Alpha Protocol? It wasn’t what I stood for. Or my country.

Hopefully.

Albatross dropped all pretense of a friendly manner. He fell back into value-absent neutral, studying me, looking me up and down, my eyes, the hand that kept aching for a pistol, the dirty hair sticking out of my hat. Sizing me up.

“I proposed we become allies,” he said, abruptly. I blame the sudden bluntness of his tone for my laughter.

“What, I become a member of G22?”

“No,” he said, lightly. He seemed to find the idea as hilarious as I did, which was a little offensive. “I propose we cooperate. You’ll find that as extensive as Alpha Protocol’s leftover safehouses and gadgets are…well, G22 has access to much more.”

“And the price?”

“Let us say I owe you. You’ve already paid me…in the only currency I value. What do you say?”

The benches on the side of the path were, despite an inch of snow, enticing. I couldn’t even begin to recap the day I’d been having. The more Albatross talked, the less sure I was it had even happened. Was I really standing here, in the middle of a Moscow storm, trying to stop a global, profit-driven nuclear war by teaming up with _G-effing-22_?

“Why not?” I said out loud. “I need all the friends I can get.”

“You won’t regret it, Mike.”

Mina was actually sincerely going to kill me this time. Or leave. She wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t leave.

Footsteps from behind, and I was glad that I’d kept the pistol holstered, because that was the too-many-th time this outing I’d been ready to point it at someone. But it was only Sis. She nodded at Albatross.

“We’re out of time, I’m afraid,” he said, as he made his way past me. “Thank you for listening to me, Mike – I know you have a great deal of work ahead of you.”

They began walking back in step, the snow sounding dead under their feet as they left. I almost let them, but…

“Albatross…” I said, softly. “I need to know something.”

I was sure he’d hear it. I wasn’t sure, though, why I was asking

“Yes,” he said, in a monotone. “What?”

The expression on his face was unreadable as I worked up the nerve to ask him. He wouldn’t know. There was no way to know. And even if he did know...

“This business with Halbech…” I started, hating the way they both looked at me, faces so free of any tells, I knew it had to be deliberate. “I…can still prevent it, right? There’s a way to stop them.”

They looked, and looked, and looked. And finally, Albatross’ eyes flicked to the ground, and Sis glanced up at him.

“This isn’t going to end well, is it?” I said, them already walking away, the answer already lost, but I was wrong. He turned, didn’t look back, cast his final words over his shoulder like they didn’t matter, although his voice was careful, careful, soft, Mina saying “ _You can’t come back_ ” all over again.

“Mike…” he said. “it never does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 61, 62, 63  
> ft edits live
> 
> mike you idiot. why do you torment mina like that.


	21. The Sail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is doubt about the feasibility of the mission and in which someone receives an unexpected package

_\------------------------_

Later Friday Morning, 7:09,

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Moscow

_\------------------------_

The folder hit the wall and loose-leaf printouts went everywhere, a few twisting lazily backwards, dangerously close to the stove eye.

“I’m _telling_ you, his schedule rotates, and he plans multiple meetings at once, and I am _trying_ to find a pattern, but you’re not helping!”

My snort pushed a sheet with scribbled notes slightly farther from the eye. Lucky for it.

Mina’s jaw tightened.

“Mike, whatever Albatross said about-”

“This isn’t about Albatross,” I said. “It’s about Surkov. So focus.”

She was going to break a tooth like that.

“How many times,” she started, the tension in her face lancing through her tone, “have you had to put more water on the stove?”

Seven, in fact. But who was counting?

“Point?”

“You’ve been up too long. _I’ve_ been up too long. This PDA camera is crap, you’ve got the blinds closed, and I can _still_ see dawn. We’re not going to get anything done like this.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“Actually, Mike, that’s where you’re wrong. Halbech’s not going anywhere today, and neither is Surkov.”

“So, you’re saying he’ll be at home, then?”

“Wha – no. Enough, Michael. Go take a nap, or a walk, or…whatever it is you do. I’m going.”

The countertop was hard under my fingernails, and it hurt, but not as much as the idea of the empty house.

“I’m sorry about the folder. And…and the cursing,” I said. “But we have-”

“Good _night_ , Mike,” she told me, and then she was gone. Like that.

The water boiled out again. I filled it back up. I stared at the notes. They didn’t make sense but at least I was doing something, at least I was trying, trying to figure out what was this guy’s angle and how did he know what about it, they were the missiles a forgone conclusion, it was assumed that, at least, I was doing something, unlike she did, for nothing, could, there was a knock.

Wha?

My cheek was stuck to the countertop. The stovetop was emitting a horrible, burnt smell. I opened my eyes and _ow fuck the light what the_ what time was it? I swatted the boiled out pot off the eye, _damn that’s was hot_ and I swear I had dreamt someone knocked on my door.

Eh?

I stumbled off the stool, tripped over something I’d thrown on the floor yesterday – looked like a gun. Looked like my rifle. Why’d I put that there? – then to the door.

I peeked out the window. There was nothing.

Correction. There was no one. There was a box.

Hm.

Might be a bomb. Boxes hold other things though. Like…board games. Or…uh…food?

“Stuff,” I said.

Food. Foodstuffs. I could use some breakfast. I stumbled back across the house, tripping over the rifle gun again, my toes connected and my brain had a thought.

_There is a box at your door_.

Then it had a better thought.

Why _is there a box at your door?_

Good point. Food sounded good, but boxes contained bombs and I should take care of that before Mina-

_-Mina is pissed off at you_.

Oh yeah. Still.

I went back, and I remembered to step over the rifle this time.

It was a pretty big box. A cardboard box. It had stamps, and it had tape. Oh, and tape. Lots of tape. Packing tape? Packing tape.

Focus.

If I tried to pick it up right now, I was going to drop it. No question. So I kicked it, gently. Scooted it, more like, until it was in the middle of the living room. It wasn’t making any beeping noises, so it probably wasn’t a bomb.

It sat there while I woke myself up. New pot of water on the stove. Toothpaste. Shower. Clothes. I didn’t feel more human. I did feel less dead. So, a minor improvement.

And as regular thinking returned, so did an uncomfortable deal of guilt for yelling at Mina. And cursing at Mina. And throwing a folder at a wall. Had that happened? There _were_ papers all over the floor and counter in the kitchen. A couple had even found their way into the living room. Everything we had on Surkov, which…

I rubbed my head, and nearly ran into the box in the living room.

Right.

The labels on the box were covered in what looked like an Arabic script, and maybe something Indo-European on top. I doubt Al-Samad would go through the trouble of mailing me a delayed death. Or G22, given they knew where I lived, apparently.

I couldn’t find a name on the box at first, but there, on the side, was scribbled one of my old, old, _old_ aliases on it. I would have been worried if I hadn’t been busy cringing. Daniel Simeon. I hadn’t used that since college. Several regrettable newspaper articles written by that guy.

I went and got a knife from the kitchen. Either the box was dangerous, or not. Someone was trying to send me a message – that much was obvious. I’d had it up to about here with unsolvable mysteries and intangible plots and floating schedules. And I was too tired to do anything reasonable about the box.

I stuck the knife blade under one of the flaps, slit the sides open, and tore it open.

A letter – with my actual name, sat on top of a wrapped-up…frame? There was stuff underneath it, too, but the frame blocked the view.

The plot thickens.

Letter first. Unless it was anthrax, in which case, letter last.

 

_Dear Mike,_

It started, in cursive.

_I take it you know what to do with this, when you’re done reading it, this being evidence, and all. I know we haven’t gotten to talk much, especially with the trip to Greece being what it was, and then finding out about Halbech. I can’t begin to imagine what you must be going through right now. So…since I’m on the cleanup team for Saudi Arabia…well, let’s just say some people are very glad to no longer owe me favors._

_I’m kidding. They still owe me._

_But we’re not here to talk about Alpha Protocol agents, are we? I bet you never want to talk about Alpha Protocol again._

_Sorry._

_What I mean to say is…I ‘rescued’ some of the stuff your left behind in Saudi. It’s not much – just some clothes, a book, some of your language notes, some commendations they sent you – they didn't get there in time, I suppose, as well as…well, I wouldn’t even know_ what _to call that, except a headache. I added the award you got for marksmanship – it took me a while to get it finished. I hope you like it._

_Since we’re in this for the long haul, consider this package a gift. Don’t worry - I’m sure I’ll save your life dozens of times in the near future, giving you ample time to get into debt yourself. Or, if you’re really careful, and if you’re smart, you might just make a friend. No promises, though._

_I’ll see you around, Agent Thorton,_

_Mina_

It…

I put the letter down. I didn’t want to look at it anymore. I couldn’t see it that well anyway, not through the blinking, and if I wasn’t blinking, I would be-

Stupid. This was silly. I was tired.

_…it’s not much – just…_

My hands were reaching for it again, unfolding it again, and I couldn’t fucking stop them.

_…you might just make a-_

Enough-

_…you know what to do with this, this being evidence, and all…_

_“Evidence of the program must be eliminated.”_

_“So now I’m reduced to being evide-”_

I stood up abruptly, letting it fall, letting it fall, the thoughts kept chasing their way around my head and it was so very-

Like being shot. No, not like that. Like being about to be shot. The moment before where you know something bad, bad, bad is coming but you can’t do a damn thing about it except stand there and shake with shaking fucking hands that wouldn’t listen, that kept reaching for the damn box–

The frame was wrapped in paper. Delicate paper that crunched lightly under my fingers. It was already carefully crinkled around the corners and edges of the wooden frame, already creased in some places, from where someone else’s fingers had run across it and tucked it here and there, thinking of me. It hurt. I unfolded it trying hard not to tear it, but it was so, so delicate.

It was beautiful, and that hurt too. Interlocking deep red wooden pieces with very simple, but polished and smooth decorative grooves running up and down the side. The award itself – words, printed, handwritten, I couldn’t tell and I couldn’t care less except for in the corner, in black ink, in cursive, _“Way to score_ ”.

Everything was hurting. Deep in my chest, and throat, and in the cold spot on my shin.

_…it took me a while to get it finished…_

The frame was so well polished my fingers left prints. So I couldn’t touch it. I laid it on the floor.

The box still had things in it. I could do this.

More awards. One from Parker, from stealth orientation, _“the agency made me give this to you”_ and I was cracking a smile despite myself. One from Agent Darcy, for acing ‘Inconspicuously-Sized Weapons of Mass Destruction’. He misspelled my name – Thornton. I could do this. A book, poems, Keats – not mine. Of all things, the shirt I’d been wearing when I got snatched out of the bar. It was so long ago. Papers, with my own steady handwriting, notes on Arabic and turns of phrases and regional colloquialisms that had seemed so important at the time. Maybe they hadn’t. I could barely remember writing them. I could do this. A small box. I recognized it. It was scribbled with Sean’s messy handwriting. I needed a minute, but if I left now, I wasn’t coming back.

I opened it.

Another frame. Black, cheap. Folded-up piece of paper on top.

Unfold it.

I…

Laughter requires air, so I made myself breathe, and the laughs that came out were squeaky, and manic, and much too close to sobs, and then I was on the floor, dying and crying and laughing because it wasn’t funny but it was _so fucking funny_ -

He photoshopped our faces onto a still frame of a buddy cop movie. Some crappy movie we’d watched way back when. And on top of that, mine was an old, shitty picture, from the day after I got back from basic training, and I looked like crap and all I wanted to do was sleep for a year, and he must dug through my entire facebook to find it, and thought, “ _hm, that’s a good picture”_ and then thought _“yes this is a good movie”_ and finally wrote all over the corner in red BEST FRIENDS FOREVER! and thought _“this is a good idea”_ only it wasn’t, because before I’d been having trouble laughing because I couldn’t breathe, and now I was having trouble breathing because I couldn’t stop laughing. I was dizzy.

And then my eyes fell on the last thing, and then the laughter was gone, leaving only the dizziness and the tears that I couldn’t stop even though I was trying so hard.

It was just a picture.

I almost remembered that day. Almost. Yancy had got me aviators for an induction gift, way back when I bought into stuff like that, when I thought this life was going to be any different from what he’d tried to tell me it was. Sean had stolen them off my desk the first day we met and hadn’t given them back until the next day, and there they were, my original pair and new identical ones, with darker tinting and oddly reflective material on the inside in the corners. Enough so that when I was wearing them I could see behind me, just barely.

_“If you’re going to be a spy,”_ he’d said, and I remember, I’d nearly had a heart attack, thought I'd been made, _“then at least be a good one.”_ That was _before_ I knew who he’d been working for.

And now I knew what else he'd done with my sunglasses, while he had them. He was out on the tarmac, near where the jets had sat. The noon sun was glinting off my glasses, level on his head. He had one hand almost-but-not-quite slinging a black sports jacket across his shoulder, the wind barely ruffling it, the wind barely ruffling his hair, and he’d pushed his light blue sleeves up to rest almost-but-not-quite at his elbows. The thumb on his other hand stuck in the waistline of his trousers, almost, but not quite tugging it barely, barely down his hip. He was looking away, perfect posture, slightly, slightly arched back, like he knew, he had to know, it didn’t matter where _he_ was looking, _I_ was going to be staring anyway. And I was. God damn me but I was, missing something that was gone, and I wanted, I wanted, I wanted to reach through the picture and start undoing buttons and have him drop the jacket with his hands around me instead and under my own shirt and – and – and I wanted him here, right now, so I could ask him what he meant by writing _Mike and Sean, Fuck Yeah!!!_ with three exclamation points and signing it full-name in the most elegant confusing combination of cursive and scrawl I’d ever seen, and elegant wasn’t a word I’d use to describe him but – but what did I know? What did I know about anything? It was just a picture.

It was just a picture.

It was just a picture.

And then it was more than that because I couldn’t have put the picture down for anything in the world but I couldn’t have held it either, once I caught the light on my glasses.

Old, worn, broken. Left lens cracked down the middle where they’d fallen off one day, the seam superglued up. My original ones. The ones Yancy had given me. I hadn’t worn them since I broke them; they stayed safe on a shelf back home.

I though Sean had sent them, for a moment.

But he hadn’t.

The clear plastic box the glasses were in had no markings, no distinguishing features except a small square piece of stiff paperboard taped to the top.

_Glad to have you with us,_ it said, in sharp black inkstrokes. _-Y_

It was just a letter and it was just a picture and they were just glasses, I tried, I tried to believe it but it was more than that, though, _it was_ , no matter how many times I said it the room was vertigo and it was more than that. It wasn’t that it was him, it was what it wasn’t and it was that I was never, ever going to see him again. Ever. I was a traitor to the agency and Yancy was a traitor to a country that expelled me and Sean was sitting there hating that he’d ever sent the picture and Mina was sitting there knowing that this didn’t end well. It never did. It didn’t end well but even if it could that would just be worse. But either way, that was it, there was no future there, no chance to say anything or explain. They took that from me. _Halbech_ took that from me. They took Mina, and Sean, and Yancy.

Saudi Arabia all over again, when the ground was sky. My world was swaying. I was sure Mina’s wood frame was going to slide off the sofa and hit the wall, and there was nothing to grab on to except the letter and the box and it didn’t help. I was never going to see him again, yeah, but I couldn't even _talk_ to him anymore. I was never going to talk to him again, never going to work with him again. No email, no TV. No more missions, no more team. I was never going to see him again. There was no way. If we failed, if we succeeded, I was done, I was here and it was real all of a sudden in such a shocking way, with such a kick to the stomach, and such a certainty I was going to fall into the ceiling that I knew I hadn’t really believed it. Not before. This was real. This was happening. _To me_.

My vision was blurry. Tears, or…there were dark spots so maybe air. I tried but I forgot how to do it, how to open my mouth and let the air in, and I couldn’t do it, not holding the letter, not holding the box, so I pushed myself up, the room was spinning but there was a fire, on the stove, and I could…

Two steps, and I was on the ground again, shin colliding with my rifle, the pain ricocheting up and down, and I gasped but at least I could breathe. So I did, again, and again. I laid there, and things didn’t stop spinning completely, but they did mostly, and I could get up again, and toddle to the kitchen, and the pot was empty but the eye was still on, the letter going up so fast the flames nearly burned my fingertips, I had to drop it and watch it curl up over itself and cease to exist. The note was harder, maybe the ink, or the paper, so I sat it on the edge and nudged it into the eye, and things were going well, the room was still, when my PDA rattled angrily and Mina was back, as abruptly as she left.

“Mike, you there?”

I had the PDA in my hands before she even made it past my name.

“I’m sorry, Mina. I’m sorry I yelled at you. You don’t deserve-”

Her voice was sharp, but at least it was there, in order to be anything it had to be there first.

“Michael, what’s wr – is that _fire?!_ ”

The note had finally caught. “Don’t worry,” I said, and I left the PDA on the counter, because now that I could walk, I had to go get everything else.

“Talk to me, Mike,” she said from the kitchen. I swiped the awards, broke the glass on the picture with my fist, which felt both worse and better than it had any right to. I balled everything up in the hand that wasn’t currently bleeding, with glass shards sticking out, and Mina’s award was sitting there, shining innocently, and I had no way to carry it, not with the fingerprints and the cuts and so I swiped Sean’s poster instead. Everything – dumped on the counter in a heap.

The poster, and the two spots of blood on them, became ashes, gone so quickly I missed it, distracted by Mina.

“Stop.” A simple command, not a request, stated like a fact, as if, just by saying it, everything would comply.

“Thank you, for your letter, Mina.” The gadgeteering award was claimed by twisting flames. Goodbye, Sean.

“I know you think this is a good idea right now, but Michael – it’s not. You’re going to regret this.”

The note of desperation in her voice should have alarmed me, I suppose.

“Evidence of the program must be eliminated,” I said, holding up Parker’s award to study his writing. I moved the pot off the eye and dangled the paper over by one corner, lowering it carefully until the bottom caught.

“Put it down.”

I did. I dropped it onto the eye, and the corners warped, and the gradient between white paper and black burned bits and orange heat got smaller, and smaller, until there was nothing left.

Well, there was _one_ thing left.

I traced the writing on the picture lightly, gave up two words in, got ready to drop it too and let it fade.

“Everyone misses you,” she said.

“It’s not about that,” I told her. But the dizziness threatened the corners of my vision again. Because it was about that, a little, but the rest of it I couldn’t afford to think about, not waking up, not finding the box, not with the frame or the picture or the fire-

“Then tell me what this _is_ about.”

“I…” I sat the picture back on the counter. Looked out the window but it was too bright. Looked at Mina but her eyes were too big, too tight, too obviously reading me, gathering intel, inspecting, concerned. Looked at the ground but my rifle was there.  So I closed them.

“Halbech…I…we…”

I knew the answer, though. Maybe I always had. Maybe I had even before I asked Albatross.

I asked anyway. “This doesn’t end well, does it?”

“Do you mean, are we going to survive this?” Mina said, openly, it stung more than the fire had, than the glass did, but that was a sting and it wasn’t important.

“No, I mean…I mean…” I forced my eyelids apart this time, because I had to know. If she was lying, to me, to herself, if she believed it, “do you think we can still stop them?”

“Yes,” she said, immediately, and I dropped my head to the counter, cool stone and warm ashes and I didn’t care about either because her eyes had been clear and sure and the small nod and smaller smile had meant everything.  

“Do you?” she asked. “Think we can stop them, that is?”

I opened my mouth…and I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

“I don’t know,” I told her, without looking up.

“Then I’m going to have to ask you to trust me, Mike. Because we can, but if you don’t believe that, we don’t stand a chance.”

“Look at me,” she added. And it was that command again, the request that wasn’t a request but a simple fact, a statement about what was going to happen. I didn’t have the energy to resist it.

“Do you trust me?” she asked, and the images flitted through my head. Waking up in a sterile room with the world’s worst headache, her voice guiding me through the maze and hell of the Greybox. Saudi Arabia, me and my team sorting through schematics and contacts and tactics and her redrawing the map in Paint so me and Sean could get a handle on it. Mina, looking up, yes we can beat them, no hesitation at all. Mina, and her larger mission.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then can we stop them?”

I expected to fight past an ache in my throat, my head, my chest, something, but there was nothing.

“We can stop them.”

“Good. Now, since we’ve finally established that you trust me…I’m going to need you to turn off the cooktop, get some sleep, and then food. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, Mike, but you’re a mess right now.”

“Thanks,” I said. My hand still hurt, with the glass, but other than that, all the cold clingy hurt was gone, tiredness or numbness and a lot of nothing left in its place.

“I’m serious. I’ll call back later.”

“Wait – why _did_ you call?”

She laughed very, very lightly. “I’m your handler. I…sensed something was wrong?”

I looked at her.

She sighed. “Fine. I found Surkov - but we're not going after him right now. So don’t ask.”

“Mina?”

“I _mean_ it-”

I shook my head. “No, it’s…I’m sorry. About earlier.”

“I _suppose_ I can forgive you,” she said with a smile that she had to know I didn’t deserve, “if you don’t do it again. Now, for god’s sake, Michael – go to bed.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And I finally managed a smile in return.

With a tiny wave, she was gone again.

The glasses sat dully in their box, next to the stove. They never would have burned. Made of the wrong stuff for that. I couldn’t keep them. I couldn’t leave them. I took them with me, and ran my fingers over the edge of the picture before taking that too. I stumbled over the rifle yet again as I made my way through the living room, and I added that to the items in my arms as well. I barely made it upstairs, piling everything on the nightstand, before the tiredness and the numbness caught hold like the fire on the papers.

I fell asleep staring at the reflection of sun on the scratched sunglasses lenses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 64, 65, 66  
> day 134 edit: I changed the last sentence. I think it makes a difference. Who really knows, though.  
> ft edits live and there are many of them but also WHOOPS I CHANGED THE LAST SENTENCE AGAIN
> 
> also also fun fact this chp is saved in my timeline notes as meltdown number 2: electric boxaloo  
> though it also could perhaps be called Dear Obsidian: If You Won't Explain Sean's Picture Then I Will  
> mike sticks it beside his bed in every single hub and i never got any explanation for this  
> it ranks 3 on my AP mystery list, under 2. SisLocket and 1. GelatoMan
> 
> also also also fun fact. i tore the game data apart for other reasons (see 1.) and i found out that sean only put two exclamation points on that picture, that bastard.


	22. Children of Parma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which finding and meeting Surkov is complicated by an international incident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Heads up, this is a long chapter

\------------------------

Friday Evening, 20:22,

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Moscow

\------------------------

“Remember when I used to have three days to get ready for a mission?” I asked the air in the living room. “Yeah, me neither.”

Of all the places Surkov could have been, of all the placed we could have found him, it had to be the American Embassy. It had to be the American Embassy in Moscow. Schematics were non-existent, intel was well guarded by the Americans, with what little slipped through being snatched up by the Russians, and the place was rife with a silly amount of cameras and Marines. Of all the buildings. Of all the embassies. It had to be the one where people were 100% on guard, 100% of the time.

On the bright side, since we had nothing to work with, we hadn’t needed much time to prep.

I checked my rifle one more time for ammo, condition, wear…it needed to be polished. The gold was getting dull.

Why did it have to be an embassy?

I put the rifle back on the table, beside the pistol. It was the same fight I’d been having with myself for the past half-hour. Never hold a weapon you aren’t prepared to use.

My hand was hovering over it again when the TV beeped and Mina arrived, rubbing her eyes.

“Do you have a plan yet?” she asked through a yawn.

_No. Why an embassy?_

“Working on it. Anything new?” I asked.

“I’ve confirmed Surkov’s at the Embassy now. He should-” yawn “be there for the next few hours, if his schedule holds.” She rubbed her eyes again and pushed some stray hairs out of her face.

“Good to hear-” Mina’s image cut in and out, and then started fizzling. “Is something wrong?”

“Something’s inter – with the signal. I’m -  to another freque- ”

The screen went black.

I had a feeling I knew what was about to happen, and a moment later. There he was. One Albatross, brown and blue scarf today, and Sis in the background. She waved cheerfully.

Albatross’ face was significantly less pleased.

“Agent Thorton –”

“Hello, Albatross,” I said pleasantly. “On a related note – goodbye.”

“I understand you’re going after Surkov,” he continued, ignoring my grumbling.

“I _suppose_ it’s too much to ask to give me some warning before you interrupt my calls?”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he explained, without explaining _anything_ , “I know about your mission, and I can assist you in getting to Surkov. When you arrive at the Embassy, I can patch into your frequency and provide support – as your handler. I think you’ll find G22’s resources are…considerable.”

“I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Excellent,” he said, and nodded in a way that made it clear he assumed I was going to say yes eventually. I had half a mind to refuse him on the spot. However, I wanted him to leave. Arguing wasn’t going to get him gone.

“I have your frequency,” he added. “I’ll contact you when you reach the embassy, and we can go from there.

“Then don’t let me keep you.”

“One last thing Mike-” he said, again as if I hadn’t clearly dismissed him – “I’d prefer infiltrating the Embassy quietly. If things should get difficult, however…”

He added a pointed look towards the weapons laid out on the table.

“I’ll be ready,” I told him, and that made up my mind. No way in hell I was bringing them. “Expecting trouble?”

Behind his shoulder, Sis stifled a smile. “Always,” he muttered, at the same time, and shut his connection off.

On the plus side, he was gone now. Also on the plus side - Mina was back.

“What happened?” Mina asked, eyes sliding closed and then flying back open. She shook her head clear. “I got cut off.”

“Mina, I think Albatross is going to be joining us at the Embassy.”

“What?!” Even through the layer of sleep, she sounded pissed. I see why Albatross kept calling me instead of her.

“I’ll explain more on the way,” I said, strapping my PDA into its pocket, and pulling on my winter coat. “But I think we need to reach Surkov _now_.”

 

\------------------------

21:30, U.S. Embassy,

Moscow

\------------------------

“So _this_ is the embassy, huh?”

The front side of the building was impressive. Big two story rotund glass windows, very modern, probably would have lit up the midnight flurries covering the place nicely.

The back side of the building was not. Stout dirty grey walls and slushy snow banks that were a familiar mix of dirt and grit and melting ice. Cigarette butts mixed into the mess here and there. Dirt and tracks and a general feeling of misery.

“I was hoping for something a little cheerier,” I said.

Mina sighed.

“There’s still no contact from G22. Do you want-”

I was getting used the sound of tortured electronics, not that I was any happier when Mina’s voice abruptly disappeared.

“Mike, this is Albatross.” _No shock there._ “Our surveillance indicates you’re at the Embassy perimeter. Can you confirm?”

“I’m guessing that feedback means you’ve cut me off from my handler.”

“I’ve locked down your signal to keep radio traffic to a minimum ,” he said curtly, like he couldn’t believe he had to spend time explaining this. “It’s a low probability Embassy security will pick up our conversation, but I’m worried about other interests.”

He had a point – _if_ he was going to be talking to me, and he was probably here to stay, wasn’t he? I blew some air through my teeth. “Understood.”

Fuck, it was cold. Even though my coat, I was shivering. Of course, huddling in the shadows, pinned on the ledge of building adjacent to the back courtyard of the building wasn’t helping. The wind was brutally sharp up here. The best place to get a good view of the layout, though. Speaking of which, if Albatross was going to sit on my frequency, he could at least be helpful.

“Has your surveillance feed picked up anything else – besides me?” I asked.

“We’re checking the embassy grounds now. No sign of hostiles – yet.”

“Depends on how you define hostiles,” I said quietly, staring at the guard pacing back and forth in front of the back entrance.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

He paused, while I debated the value of keeping my earbuds in.

“There _are_ Embassy guards at the front. But they don’t seem to be on alert. You…did speak to Grigori, didn’t you, Thorton?”

“Y-”

“I would’ve thought local informants would have already revealed our presence in Moscow.”

“I spoke to him,” I interjected. “But he didn’t mention any ties to the Embassy – in fact, he’s the one who gave me Surkov’s name.”

“Grigori makes his living selling intelligence. If he didn’t sell your whereabouts to Surkov-” I was getting lectured. _I_ was getting _lectured_. “then we have a problem.”

“Seriously?” I said, without meaning to.

“Yes, Michael, seriously,” he hit back, deadpan, missing, I feel, the point. “Now, how you want to handle your approach is up to you, Thorton. If you get into trouble, though, I cannot get agents there in time to help you – but remember Surkov is our priority.”

“Understood.” It sounded mechanical, not that I cared. I was being given permission to handle _my_ mission the way _I_ wanted by a guy who hacked his way past my _actual_ handler.

And as if I would need rescuing. By G22.

“There may be another way into the building.” I mean, allies were one thing, but this? “Satellites are picking up possible roof access.”

I was an agent. A rogue one, sure, but I didn’t need a paranoid babysitter. In fact, I-

“Thorton.” Albatross said sharply. “Do you copy?”

“Uh-”

“Roof access, agent.” He put extra emphasis on _agent,_ which…fine. I deserved that.

Although if he was annoyed now, he had another one coming.

“Yes, sir, understood.” I said, marginally more cheerful.

Roof access. It was an intriguing plan, if I was looking to get shot by Marines once I got inside. It had to be an embassy. I was good at breaking and entering, but some places you just…don’t.

Fully staffed American embassies deep in the heart of Russian territory a month after a massive international terrorist attack – that was the kind of place you didn’t. Which left one option.

Do or die.

At least it would be warmer off this ledge.

 

* * *

 

The guard pivoted around on his heel, starting the other half of his circuit, when he saw me sauntering across the courtyard, one large ball of puffy jacket and fur lined hood. His hand went for the clunky shotgun that rested protectively at his side, but he didn’t pull it on me. I could hear his inner thoughts – _he’s inside the courtyard, those guys at the front probably checked him, he probably isn’t a threat, right, god, don’t let me shoot some foreign Russian shithead_. I grinned at him, pulling my mittened hands out of my pockets and spreading them out welcomingly. Me, a threat?

“Hi!” I called out, in my best East Coast American accent. The guard rubbed a hand along the red stubble on his chin, and rolled his shoulders back into a more defensive stance.

“Can we help you, sir?”

“I was hoping to see Sergei Surkov,” I said, wrapping my hands around my sleeves and shivering. A cold, miserable American – no need to pose a challenge. “Can you check if he’s in?”

The guard paused. “Of course, sir,” he said, slowly. “Give me a moment.” He fumbled with the radio on his belt.

Albatross’s alarmed and angry commands rung out over the earbud, making it easy to keep a genuine smile in place. “You are _not_ on the list,” he said urgently.

No shit. But I was getting in, either way.

“Sure is cold today,” I said to the guard, ignoring Albatross. See how he likes it.

The guard looked up, and nodded, a smile starting to eat through the suspicion as he got the radio free.

“Can’t wait to get back home,” he said under his breath, then glanced over at me, an apology already forming. Breaking diplomatic code, for shame. I let him off easy.

“You’re tellin’ me. You know-”

“Agent Thorton,” Albatross continued, syllables sharp and distressed and a little too fast, which was fantastic. Really took the edge off of _can’t wait to get back home_. “Do _not_ let the guard make that call.”

Watch me work, G22. See if I need rescuing.

“-me and Surkov, we’re old friends. I probably should have called first, but-” I sighed. The guard had shared a faux pas with me, I could return the favor - “I didn’t.”

“Well, sir,” the guard spun the radio around in his hands, keying in something on the side, “that’s why we have a list. Can you hang on a minute?”

“What are you _doing?!_ ” Albatross demanded, at the same time.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” I told them both.

The guard frowned quizzically, and I beamed at him, whereas Albatross…the line went decidedly quiet.

“Yes, Surkov, sorry to disturb you, but-” the guard said, as he held the radio up to his mouth – “someone to see you. Yes. American – you can see him on the camera.”

I waved at the camera. The guard listened intently to the tinny sounds on the radio, nodding a couple of times.

“Well?” I prompted gently.

He held up a finger, nodded one more time...and then stuck the radio back on his belt.

“Surkov’s waiting for you – you’re cleared to go in, sir.”

And to add to my surprise, he went and held the door open for me.

“Thanks,” I said, over my shoulder. Well, that…

That actually worked out okay.

Huh.

I crossed into the tiny office-like lobby, waltzed across the open space like I belonged there. Did not look at the two or three guards stalking the upper floor balcony. Did not look confused at the stairs heading upwards, and the ones heading down, and the maze of hallways branching off from all sides of the first floor. If I was Surkov, where would I be?

On the comm, Albatross finally resurfaced. He got one word into a speech before he dissolved into spluttering.

“You – how did you – you could not have –”

Might as well run with it, while I still could.

“Don’t ever,” I said, just loud enough for my earpiece to register, “doubt me again.”

“Agent Thorton, that was-” and a white noise cut him off. A blazing force flung me halfway across the lobby, and the sound of his retort was lost to the shrieking tearing noise of concrete and rebar warping and ripping apart in chunks.

When I came to I couldn’t breathe for a second and when I could, it was all smoke and dust and evening sky and the Stryker burning and-

“Alb-” Smoke, and coughing, and erratic static in the earbuds. “Mi-” And more coughing. I couldn’t stop, the dust getting everywhere, like breathing dirt, facedown, the fiery wreckage of the bridge-

There was a sudden pressure on my shoulder, I was doubled over with spasming coughs and I couldn’t look, didn’t have my pistol, couldn’t-

“Sir! Can you hear me?!” The voice was muffled, but it was there, tugging me backwards, away from Surkov – Surkov, _shit_ –

A face was in front of mine, all of a sudden, red beard tinged with a grey layers of fine grain detritus, the guard from earlier, eyes wide, darting all over the place, but his hand was still on my arm.

“You’re gonna be fine. We’ll get you out of here. We’re evac-” he started, and then the shooting started.

One minute he was here, the next, diving behind a smoldering chunk of ceiling with a shotgun in hand, blasting away at the white jumpsuits that were pouring through a jagged gap in the wall.  

VCI.

Surkov.

They were here for Surkov.

They had to be.

Move, Michael.

The guard flipped his head around quickly when he saw me. “Get dow-”

A hole in his chest, and then nothing else.

_Move, Michael._

Marines emerged, some dazed, some shooting, from hallways and from behind piles of rubble. The VCI swarmed them. Both sides ignored the lone civilian stumbling his way to a relatively clear hallway.

Surkov. Halbech.

The hallway was quiet, until it abruptly collapsed in on itself. Twisted metal beams impacted on the carpet. Dust flew everywhere, dust and insulation and wall and ceiling. I backpedaled, fumbling in the unclear air until I hit the mostly intact stairs. Upstairs was quieter, until the VCI hit there, too. Machine gun fire painted the decorative semicircle floor to ceiling windows, and when that didn’t work, explosives. The glass fragmented and fell and heavy cable cords launched from a helicopter to embed themselves into the far walls. Motion. Some VCI falling from the ziplines as return fire opened stomachs and chests and arms. Some Marines falling from the broken edge of the building as the VCI flung them off the edge.

“-ou copy?”

I dropped, expecting the shots, but they didn’t come, and when the voice rung out again…

“Repeat: Mike, do you copy?”

“ _Albatross_.” It was a sigh and a word all at once.

“I’m reading a C4 explosion in your area…the VCI are attacking the building.”

“I know. They’re – the Marines…”

One crawled on the floor, pulling himself by his elbows towards his rifle. The carpet soaked up the blood from the glistening maw in his back. The rifle was four feet away and he wasn’t going to make it even the one. I reached out to grab it, to scoot it over, and his hands closed over it weakly before he shuddered, and relaxed.

“ _Halbech_ ,” I hissed, hand clenched around the other end of the rifle.

“Enough – keeping focusing on Surkov,” Albatross said, urgent, insistent, “that’s where they’re headed.”

I growled, pulled the rifle loose from the dead Marine’s limp fingers. Centered it one on of the machine gunners in the helicopter. The range was off. I fired anyway.

“Do _not_ attract undue attention!”

I could get closer. No cover, but I could hit him. I moved out, nearer to the freezing cold grass-rimmed opening the VCI had made. Looked down the scope at the jumpsuit, and almost clipped him. _That_ got the fucker’s attention. He swung his own machine gun around a bit.

“Are you _trying_ to-”

The gunner tensed, reading his shot, and everything was clear for a moment. If I aimed right there, traced it right over his head, then when he jerked – unless he shot first – and –

“You have a mission, Mike.”

I pulled the trigger, and the gunner flailed backwards, grabbing at his arm, then the side of the helicopter, then the air, and there were more targets down the hall, I knew, if I just -

“Michael-”

It wasn’t brittle, or hard, or even a command, so I didn’t care, at first-

“Agent Thorton,” he said, and it was a quiet word. He must have been sure I wouldn’t hear it over the alarms and nearby firefights and yelling.

But I did.

“I’m here,” I said, and forced a foot backwards, and then then other, until I got myself back down the hallway, back out of range. “I’m here.”

“Good. Because Surkov is close. I’m picking up his radio.”

 

* * *

 

The VCI were dragging two people down the hallway. One VCI troop dragged a dazed and limp man in a soot-covered business suit in by his arm. The other was struggling to haul a flailing older woman in a pantsuit by her pulled back hair. She had a deep angry bruise across the side of her small, squarish face, sparse trails of blood leaking from the microcuts. Blood on the VCI’s glove gave me a pretty good clue of what had happened. That, and the fact that she was continuing to fight, digging her heels in, had a foot linked around a fallen piece of rebar. They were involved in a bizarre imitation of tug-of-war, except it was her life at stake. I checked the instinctive rage, squeezed off two headshots, regretted that I didn’t have a moment to help the two civilians. I had to get to Surkov.

“Mr. Thorton-” the woman said in a low, clipped tone, the faintest trace of a Russian accent. I stopped dead and spun around to see her looping a short arm around the man, pushing herself up with the other, looking over her shoulder at me. The blood on her face was dangerously close to her mouth, but she made no move to wipe it away.

“Perhaps you could assist us?” she asked, stifling a light cough. She patted the man's shoulder, and he wobbled his head around until his eyes landed on mine. He flapped a hand about in what was almost a wave and bobbled his head unsteadily in a nod.

“Agent Thornton!” he exclaimed, and I took a hard look around for a moment, but no. It was me he was talking to. “I had _heard_ you were in Moscow!”

“Surkov?” I asked, feeling the floor wobble from a distant explosion.

The man grinned broadly, and gave me a thumbs up, stopping to stare at his curled fingers in amazement.

“Shock,” the woman postulated. “We didn’t expect our meeting to be quite so…dramatic.”

“You _knew_ I was coming?”

The woman beside him stopped checking Surkov’s various cuts and bruises for a moment to shoot me a concerned look. “Why do you think you were allowed in?”

Surkov giggled, and tried to push himself up. Falling back down was apparently equally funny.

“ _Moy milyy Gri-gor-i_ ,” he said, stretching the syllables out, “mentioned you were in Moscow.”

“I suspect he let others know as well,” the woman added, finishing her examination of Surkov and moving on to her own wounds.

“Surkov is correct,” Albatross butted in, “Unless you want to leak information, I _suggest_ you use another contact in the future.”

“That’s…irritating,” I said.

“That’s BUISNESS!” Surkov shouted, and the woman and I cringed at the same time, both of us scanning the halls for any VCI troops that might have heard it.

“We need to get him to safety,” she said.

“Grigori is irritating, _Surkov is_ _irritating, BUISNESS IS IRRITATING!_ ” Surkov continued shouting in a singsong voice, slipping into Russian. The woman shot him an alarmed stare, and jabbed him with an elbow. We _did_ need to get him out of here.

“Mike – the VCI is ahead of you. And it looks like they’re hacking the embassy systems,” Albatross said.

“If we can get Surkov to the courtyard, can you get us an evac?” I asked him, ignoring the confused look from the woman.

“I told you – I cannot get agents there in-”

“ _No backup._ You can say it, it’s just two words. It’ll save you time in the future,” I told him, and he huffed out some air through his nose.

I sighed. The embassy personnel could get us out, if there were any left, of course. The police would probably be here in a minute too.

“Fuck,” I summarized.

Surkov busted out laughing, and started mimicking me.

The woman rubbed her head slowly, pulled out an iPhone, and started texting.

“Take him,” she said, without looking up, voice straining over the sound of Surkov's lilting swears. “If we can get to the courtyard, our people can get us out of here.”

“Who is she?” Albatross prompted impatiently, like the question hadn’t bothered to occur to me. Truthfully, it hadn’t, but he couldn’t have know that, and so he shouldn’t be talking to me like that.

“ _Our_ people?” I asked. “And you are?”

“An aide,” she said dismissively. “Surkov, stop.”

“I can say it! It’s just two words!” he sang.

“Can you…?” She looked up, then over at Surkov.

I began the process of fighting to get him off the ground, something that was made easier by his sudden fascination with my jacket’s hood. The aide finally finished calling in the cavalry, replaced the phone, and extracted a gun from one of the VCI’s corpses.

I raised an eyebrow, she smiled politely, and so it was decided that I, the only trained operative in the group, would be carting a laughing Russian mobster down the rubble-strewn hallway of the American embassy while the ex-mafioso’s aid faced the worst the VCI had to offer with a stolen pistol.

Surkov, of course, found it hilarious.

Albatross, less so.

Both made sure to let me know

 

* * *

 

The two burst through a splintered door trailing black smoke, landed in the hallway, red stained VCI white tangling with torn Marine blue as arms wrapped around throats. Aide blasted the head off the VCI, jumped the corpse, and kept running.

The Marine, gasping as she shoved it free, mouthed a quick thank you in our direction and disappeared through an adjacent door, towards the shout of shotguns and SMGs.

I shifted Surkov on my shoulder, and tried to catch up.

 

The aide was bent over a twitching VCI, her ear all but pressed to his cracked lips. Her back was to the guy rounding the corner with a pistol in hand. It was instinct. I dropped Surkov, went for my rifle, I wasn’t going to be fast enough, not like that.

“HEY!” I shouted instead. And it worked. One second of distraction, and the aide whirled around with her own pistol. Three rounds to the chest. He stumbled backwards, hit the wall, and slid down, dislodging the Halbech corporate poster-

Wait, the _-_

The aide’s panicked garbled scream filled the hallway. The other dying VCI had an arm around her neck, boots digging into her back, the other grasping at her pistol. No space for weapons – I pulled him off her first, and then shot him while she curled around herself, hyperventilating.

I knelt beside her, put my hand on her arm. The words stuck in my throat because the man who had said them was dead on the ground with VCI bullets in his gut, but I got them out anyway.

“You are going to be fine,” I said, emphasizing carefully. “I’ll get you out of here.”

She put a hand over my own. “Help me up, please.”

I pulled her to her feet, and she stared intently at the ground before laying her pistol on the floor, next to the VCI.

“I’ll take Surkov,” she said, quietly, moving away as she spoke and leaving no room for argument.

 

* * *

 

The front of the lobby was in ruins. The windows had been shattered. Doors were blown off their hinges. The walls shuddered under the impact of missile blasts, American return fire and grenades. Outside, Marines and security staff popped out from makeshift cover behind toppled columns, flipped cars, in one case, a snowbank in the courtyard.

“Do not let him get shot, else this was all for nothing,” Albatross commanded over the racket of combat.

“There.” The aide pointed past the courtyard gate, down the street, towards where an unassuming black sedan peeked out from behind a corner.

“This isn’t gonna work,” I said out loud. Getting across the impromptu warzone by myself would have been tricky. With Surkov, hard. With _two_ civilians in tow? Damn near impossible.

“Get on the roof,” Albatross barked.

“What?”

“Quickly. If you can get on the roof before the building destabilizes, you can skirt the fighting and climb down from-”

“Got it.” I pulled Surkov free from the aide’s shoulders, dropped my borrowed rifle so I could pick him up, backpack style.

“Listen,” I told her, “See that out there?”

She nodded.

“We’re going to try to get around it by walking around it on the roof. Now, this isn’t a problem, but we need to move fast. And we’re probably going to have to do some jumping. Are you gonna be okay?”

I had expected…I don’t know, a civilian response. But she didn’t blink or shy away.

All she said in response was,“That’s a shit idea.”

“If you’d rather wait for the VCI…”

She made a harrumphing noise in the back of her throat, but she followed me when I went for the stairs. And she didn’t back down when they shook with each footstep. And she helped me boost Surkov up the access ladder, pulling his arms from the top while I tried my best to climb and hold him and not think too hard about where my life went wrong.

From the roof, the fighting looked even worse. You could see the people behind the cover, could see that despite the flurried exchange, most of the Americans were dead or dying, or bent over themselves moaning. The echoes bounced off the intact structures, carried them up, for one second a stream of mumbled sobbing promises perfectly clear. Then the wind shifted, and a plume of smoke from the burning embassy engulfed the fighters.

The aide cleared the small gap between the embassy roof and a tall service building badly, landing on an ankle with a snap I felt, but couldn’t hear over the sound of her scream. She was up again by the time I made it over, biting her lip hard as she hobble-hopped across the roof.

“Are you-”

She turned, and hit me with a scowl made all the worse by the blood leaking from her bottom lip, so I let the matter drop, even when I had to boost her up so she could grab the ledge on the final building, and I saw the sharp, out-of-place lump in the side of it. The swelling was already starting. If she didn’t want to address it, then I had other things to focus on. She worked her way through the window and into the building slowly, eventually reaching out to grab Surkov. When I made it through and picked him back up, he was alarmingly quiet and still.

The gunshots were dying down in the courtyard. Smoke swirled everywhere, making it impossible to see if the pockets of silence were a good thing, or a very, very bad thing. We needed to move. I could feel the adrenaline starting to wear off. The rest of the day – two days, really, began their slow circling around me. As badly as I could feel myself about to get, Aid was probably doing worse. She was collapsed against a wall, her face tense, her eyelids were squeezed shut, and her breathing forced. I pulled her up too, and let her lean on me as we made it down the stairs, one at a time, all the while me counting the seconds between gunshots. 3. 7. 12. An eternity. I almost expected the VCI to be waiting at the door as we crossed the empty, dark ground floor of the building and got the doors open, but there were only errant snowflakes, the sporadic report of shots _(22, 38)_ , and the rising wail of sirens.

And the welcome, welcome grumbling of an engine as the black sedan squealed to a sudden stop in front of the doors, a driver in a grey suit rushing out to open doors and wave us in, casting frightened glances back towards the embassy. Aide crossed around the car, pressing hard against the side and hood as she tried to go quickly.

I deposited Surkov on the black leather back seat.

Then I hesitated.

“Thoughts?” I whispered. This was only for Albatross. Hopefully.

“Surkov is our priority,” he said curtly.

“That doesn’t-” _-help_ , I intended to say, but Aide popped her head back out of the car, and waved.

“Mr. Thorton, if you are here concerning Halbech-” she gestured back towards the back smoke and fire- “I don’t suggest you stay to ask them. Come.” And she waved again, this time at the driver, who put a hand firmly on my back and propelled me towards the car.

Surkov and Halbech. I got in, the driver got in, Aide closed her door and we took off.

 

* * *

 

The night was bright with red and blue. Cop cars and fire trucks charged by, and the deeper we got into the metropolitan areas, the slower we moved until we were locked in a press of fellow late night travelers. And that was _before_ the traffic roadblocks started. The aide sat in the passenger’s side wringing her hands and talking nonstop on her phone while the driver smashed the horn impatiently. When that failed, the aide actually got out of the car, supported by the driver, and dragged a cop over. Liberal amounts of paper exchanged hands, as did a few angry words, and like that we had a police escort.

Finally, the aide finished a hurried conversation, put the phone down, and twisted around in her, seat belt pressing deep into her shoulder.

“When Grigori indicated you were in Moscow, he underestimated your abilities,” she began, without preamble. “I did not.”

How she had energy at this point was beyond me, unless she had a secret stash of caffeine pills or something up there.

 “Glad I didn’t disappoint,” I said, and tried to shake the urgent _SLEEP_ signals my body was sending me away. I sat up as best as I could. The cop looked back in his rearview mirror at the same time.

“You came concerning Halbech, correct? May I ask why?”

“I was hoping Surkov could help me…” I said. “Halbech has secrets here in Moscow I need to know about – before they become larger problems.”

She glanced over at Surkov, smiled grimly. “If _I_ can help you, I will. I know they have been smuggling weapons through Moscow, but I thought that was known to the United States?”

“Let’s just say as far as the U.S. goes, the left and right hand aren’t talking as much as they used to.”

Her phone buzzed, and she ignored it in favor of staring at me.

“Do you know who Halbech’s contact is here?” I asked.

“I…have a suspicion, but I’d like to be certain.” Her phone buzzed again, and her hand twitched. “I’ll find out and let you know.”

This was too easy. This was uncomfortably easy. The cop was looking backwards again.

“You know…I kind of expected this talk to go a lot worse.”

“ _Sometimes_ , Mr. Thorton,” and she sounded so much like Albatross my fingers went to check my earbud, “having your reputation precede you can be advantageous. Grigori’s information…it told me much about you. That you respect duty, and honor.”

They got all that from one meeting at a bar?

“Fair enough,” I lied. Something was off here. The instinct was colder than sitting on the ledge, was making my hair start to stand on end.

“I’m tracking your location,” Albatross told me, his attempt at being reassuring only serving to make the bad feeling worse.

The cop looked back. _Danger_. At least Surkov was slouched over next to me. If necessary, I had a hostage.

The aide eyed me, and sighed heavily.

“Mr. Thorton, if I wanted you dead, I could have told the embassy guard to shoot you,” she chided.

“I? He was talking to Surkov.” The cold feeling crept a little further up my spine.

“I handle _all_ of Surkov’s appointments,” she said smoothly, eyes going to her phone, hands picking it up and tapping in a passcode casually, shoulders open and face relaxed but something was off here.

“If you are headed for a hospital, you will arrive in three minutes.”

I didn’t like the way Albatross emphasized the if.

“I am working on getting an agent there to assist,” he added, and in comparison, emphasizing the if seemed downright reassuring.

I watched her texting, and it was like walking into your room late at night, and being absolutely sure something was missing, but not being able to tell for the life of you what it was. Except here my life actually might depend on it. The cop looked back again, and I swear our eyes met.

“All, including your next one,” the aide continued, and briefly tilted her phone to show a packed calendar. “We’ll contact you, when we know more.”

“If it’s all the same…I’d rather stay and talk to Surkov myself.”

Her fingers halted mid-word. “That won’t be necessary.”

“You’ll hardly notice I’m there-”

“That _won’t_ ,” she said, tone hardening and eyes narrowing, “be necessary, Mr. Thorton.”

“One minute,” Albatross interjected.

The driver slammed on the brakes, and my head hit his headrest, and the cop in front of us had his taillights blazing so it couldn’t have been on purpose but all the same the aide was still upright, like she hadn’t budged an inch or even moved.

Except she had.

Where before she’d been holding her iPhone, now she had wrapped in her palm a small pistol. She angled her shoulder around it, blocking it from any view but my own.

“We _will_ help you, but on _our_ terms.”

“This how all your business dealings go?”

I could grab it if I was fast enough. Maybe.

“No,” she said, keeping the pistol focused.

“But you admit _you_ do business?”

“Michael…” Albatross warned.

“Relax, I’ve got this.” I told him, out loud, and the aide frowned, seeming, for the first time, more concerned than confused by the earbud.

“Who…?”

“You have your secrets; I have mine. How about this-” I said, and leaned back in the seat, sticking my elbows on the top, dangling one hand purposefully over where Surkov’s motionless head was slumped- “you go first, and I’ll think about telling you.”

She had the shot, if she wanted it. Point-blank, if she wanted to take it. I didn’t think she did. But…small details were popping out in sharp relief. The configuration of the car, the bulkiness of the body – armored, probably. The embassy – why hadn’t the VCI just shot her along with the rest of the civilians? And where, even, had the other civilians been? The aide – her ankle had to be killing her, but there was no trace, no tension, no white knuckles on the gun, that was practice, that was discipline, that was training. Something was off, something was wrong here. And not just with the aide. Every sense, every part of me, wanted to be out of this car.

“Something is not right.” _Thanks, Albatross_.

The aide studied me, while medical signs began appearing on the side of the road, next to grey brick buildings. I kept my breathing easy, calm, which was pretty damn hard, given that my heartrate had decided to rebel.

Then Surkov stirred weakly, she sighed, and then shrugged. The pistol disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

“I’ll take you up on that,” she said. She shifted back around in her seat, and looked at me through the rearview mirror. Both she and the cop, great. The car banked into an entryway as a last straggling ambulance screeched out the way we had come. We pulled up almost to the front, the driver’s feet hitting the pavement almost before mine did. Almost. Sweet freedom.

That got another laugh out of the aide, who rose from her seat much more slowly.

“Are you planning to walk home like that?” she asked, and gestured broadly to a rip in my jacket I hadn’t noticed I’d gotten, as well as scorch marks and dust and judging from her pantomimes, a cut across my cheek and nearly to my ear. It stung when I touched it, and there was blood on my fingers when I pulled them away.

“Maybe I am,” I started, but Albatross interrupted me, odd forced casualness in what I can only assume was a really bad impression of what I sounded like.

“ _Relax, I’ve got this,_ ” he said. A moment later, a tall shadow detached itself from a car parked at the corner of the street and the entrance, made its way over. The man was lithe, almost skeletal, but his eyes were dark and he stared at everything so intently, he ended up looking less like a pushover and more like something out of a Grimm fairy tale. And not the good kind. Aide’s eyes widened slightly. Mine too.

“Uh…is he with us?” I asked Albatross. And Albatross actually laughed, dry and low and dark, and it would have sounded faked, if it wasn’t coming from him, a guy who didn’t seem to know what a laugh was, much less a fake one.

“For the time being. He will escort you home. He will also debrief you. I trust that you won’t try to upset him.”

“Well, _is_ he with us?” asked the aide.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the man told her, rough voice combining with his Russian accent menacingly, “I will be borrowing your companion.”

“Of course,” she said, and gave me two raised eyebrows and a sideways look. As if we were on the same team, casually commiserating.

“Nobody’s borrowing me,” I huffed, and straightened my jacket. Ichabod Crane glared down.

“But,” I amended. “I wouldn’t say no to a ride.”

“Good.” He stuck a hand on my shoulder and power spun me around. I nearly lost my footing as he began leading me away.

“Oh, Thorton?” called the aide. Ichabod didn’t stop, so neither could I. I looked back over my shoulder at her. “ _We’ll_ call _you_.”

“I like that line,” Albatross said thoughtfully.

I’m sure the aide must have watched the two of us stumble down the sidewalk – rather, me stumble, and him ignore it – but I didn’t look back.

_How to avoid this debriefing?_ I was thinking, and then we reached street, and for the second time that night, I got into a stranger’s car and disappeared in the Moscow night.

\----------------------

Saturday

\----------------------

I could have slept for a week. And that was _before_ the two-hour interrogation disguised as debriefing. If I’d felt even a little better I would have gotten them away from me, somehow, but I felt like hell and they were G22. Two hours of the world’s worst headache, of nightmare mental gymnastics, of trying to keep fifty different lies straight and a hundred different truths obscured – had I said my handler was tall, or short? Or had I even mentioned that? Two hours of the world’s worst headache, and best of all, it was two pointless hours, because the safehouse was a minefield of mission notes and dossiers and of course Mina’s award on the sofa, and if G22 didn’t have a full profile on every one of my contacts by tomorrow morning then they didn’t deserve to be in intelligence. Stupid. It had been a rookie mistake, but Ichabod hadn’t commented. He plodded through his never-ending questions, some of them not even sounding like questions, innocuous little comments you started talking about before you realized what it was – _it must be useful, having access to Alpha Protocol intel_ – all the while headache and tiredness merging and colliding so badly I stopped focusing and didn’t notice there were two images of Ichabod in front of me instead of the one for at least a minute. And then, when he finally finished, stood, thanked me, and left, the entire thing all over again with Mina. Only this time, with the added bonus of trying to tell the lies I’d just sold G22 from the things that had actually happened. She wrote it all down.

“I’ll sort through this, and then see if I can’t pull any recordings off you PDA,” she said.

“Thanks,” I told her.

And then it _still_ wasn’t over, because Ichabod was back with a big cardboard box, tapping on the door. When I only sat and stared, shocked, there he was, letting himself in with a key from how the hell did he get that, sitting the box down next to the other open box – _had that really only been yesterday?_ – and pulling out cans and plastic crinkly bags and brightly colored boxes of foodstuffs with Russian branding.

“G22 will be in contact, Agent,” he rumbled, and left again.

Then, _then_ , it was over. I waited a good half an hour, just in case, but nothing.

The worst part, I think, was that after everyone was gone I realized why I’d let them stay.

I could hear the shooting. I could hear the screaming. Not loudly, not distinctly. Background noise. Light enough that it sounded real, that it sounded like someone was playing noises on a radio somewhere.

And beyond that, things scattered all over the safehouse like debris.

I left. It wasn’t that I couldn’t take it, it was that…

I felt itchy, all over. I felt like I was going to have to start tearing at my own skin, if I stayed. I felt like I’d tear off the bandaids on my arm and I’d find the scratches I’d gotten from Yulian raw and open all on their own.

Eight days ago.

_Five._

Five days ago…?

Nothing was feeling real, so I left. I knew the sun would be up in a couple of hours, and I thought maybe that would help.

Funny thing about that, though. It was even quieter outside.

 

Sunday

_The city is shut down. Not even ‘as shut down as a metropolitan area can get’ shut down. It’s full stop, no one on the streets except an occasional emergency vehicle. The US is expelling diplomats. Several congresspeople are spouting conspiracy theories. A feeling like war is in the air and it doesn’t help that we’re snowed in today._

_The US is shouting. Moscow is quiet. The city is so quiet, and I can’t take it._

_Several of my neighbors ventured out of their apartments earlier to talk in frightened clusters and spread misinformation up and down the hall. The news isn’t helping. The first few reports said it was an accidental fire, and only a potential terrorist attack. The second reports…I don’t know how they justified airing it to themselves. Someone had gotten ahold of pictures. Bad pictures. Dead bodies blown in half at the torso pictures. Civilian workers’ heads smashed open pictures. One, of someone falling from a broken window. Once I started watching I couldn't look away and I just keep thinking. I just kept thinking. Someone took those. Someone was taking those. Someone was there to take them and that means someone_ knew _._

_Someone took them, and sent them to the news, and the media fucking ran with it, and now my neighbors think they’re going to die today._

_I can’t even tell them they’re wrong._

_They might not be._

_Halbech. They did this. They attacked. They got pictures. They provoked this. Fuck, maybe they got politicians to call out the Russians, to kickstart this end of the world bullshit. Maybe Darcy did. His dad’s congress. And Halbech has someone inside Alpha Protocol. His dad is running for president. Shit. Shit. I can’t think about that right now. I can’t handle that right now._

_My neighbors._

_My neighbors are scared._ _They tried to get me to come out and gossip with them. I should have stayed inside but in the hall was noise, and light, and people. They got one look at the gash on my face and went silent, all as one. I told them I got hit by a cop car on its way to the attack. I couldn’t keep my accent up, not that it would have mattered, who I am, how I look. Once the floor realized that I was both an American,_ and _the closest to the incident, I quickly became the focus of the floor. Bad news. Stay under the radar. I told myself to leave, someone hugged me, and I lost it. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t stop crying, and I realized the last person who even came close to holding me like that was an agent who was about to tranq me and deliver me over to an organization that had been planning to betray me since minute one. I lost it and they let me and I turned from the focus of the floor to the darling of the floor all at once. They brought me into one of their apartments and there we all stayed, two families, several young couples, a single parent and her teenagers, and two grandparents. We stayed, and we watched the news, and every time the anchor turned slightly pale in the face and announced that something graphic was coming, the mother shooed her children away and the quietest of the husbands present offered me a drink. And there we stayed, until it was too late to keep awake, until it was time to go back home. I don’t believe but they do so if you’re out there, help them. They deserve it._

_Now I’m back in the safehouse, back here alone, the sound of nothing far too loud, louder even than the news with the flood of images and cell phone recordings of the fire spreading and experts ruminating endlessly over the possibility of things getting worse. The news plays endless arguments. The emergency dispatch records. The survivor accounts - and none of them the Marines. If Mina would call and give me something to work on, to analyze, something to be an agent for, then maybe I could get away from this shaking, angry, sick feeling that takes over my stomach and drops me whenever I think too hard about the embassy and Halbech and Yancy and Leland and the person who took those pictures and every fucking person that had a hand in this for no better reason than money and power and money. But she doesn’t call._

_I don’t understand. I don’t understand why this has happened, and I’m the one who’s supposed to. I don’t get it any more than my neighbors do, even if I know more about it than them. And I really wish I didn’t. I wish I could sit here, and be afraid the world is going to end, and that’s all. I’ve been there before. I can handle that. Instead…_

_Instead, I get to sit here_ knowing _the world is ending._

_Instead, I get to sit here_ knowing _I’m the only one who can do anything about it._

_Instead of knowing the world is ending, I get to be afraid I can’t stop it._

_I need to get out of here but the city is shut down._

Monday Morning

_Scarlet knows I’m in Moscow. She thinks I’m on to something. She had to make the connection. But she didn’t ask about that. She only emailed me to ask if I was okay, and how was I doing, and explain she’d left for Taiwan the day of the attack, and they went to shut down the airport right when her plane was supposed to be taking off, and it was chaos, people and security running everywhere and nobody knew what was going on. Her flight barely made it out, the last one out of Moscow, she thought, though her luggage hadn’t gotten through so she can’t imagine what it must be like to actually be in the city right now and to take care and please email her back because some of her friends in Moscow hadn’t yet and she was starting to freak out about it, okay? I got through about three words – yeah, im fine – before I couldn't write anymore without feeling sick and then I sent it anyway. Sending it was a bad idea. I was glued to my email all day – better than watching the clips on the news over and over and over again until I start to memorize them. I was waiting for something from Surkov or Mina or even Albatross. I was waiting and waiting, so I saw her next three emails hit one after another, alternatively angry, concerned, and back to upset. I saw them, so I fell into answering them._

_She spent most the afternoon on pointless, small stuff, going from emails to hey you don’t sound that great can we Skype? She talked about her problems with her new job (the piece is going to take months to do properly, and if I pull it off, I’m probably going to lose some friends), a complete recap of the last season of her favorite show (what do you mean, you don’t have time for Lost? Listen-), her recommendations for places to go in Moscow once things settled down (it will, you know, I promise). I noticed when her tone shifted, and her questions became more probing (What’s it like outside lately?) and pointed (Have you been by the embassy?) and finally forthright (Mike, what’s with the bandage?). I noticed it (outside is cold and quiet), and it probably was another bad idea (yeah I’ve been by) but I let it happen (I got cut. Debris)._

_“You were THERE?!” she said. “Why?!”_

_“Halbech.”_

_“Oh.” Her face twisted her eyes stuttered and her hand went to on her silver bar necklace as the impact of it hit. “Are you sure? How do you know?”_

_I wanted to tell her, but then again, I didn't want to think about it. It was like she saw my thoughts, and didn’t like it, and her fury turned on me._

_“People have a right to know”, she said, low, angry and full of force._

_Then my email pinged again, only this time it was Surkov, instructions, timing._

_I had a meeting. At the time, it wasn’t for another few hours, but…_

_“I have to go,” I told Scarlet, and disconnected in the middle of an indictment._

_She’s emailed me something but I don’t want to look at it._

_I don’t want to talk about it anymore._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 67 - 73 and 74 - 76  
> ft edits live
> 
> Side note: the mission to the embassy occurs here one hour later than in-game. I had a good reason for this but I can't remember what it was.  
> also hm fridays aren't michael's best days, are they.


	23. «Я - Гойя»

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Surkov decides to share some...interesting news about Halbech

_\------------------------_

Monday, 3/3, 15:08,

Surkov’s Office

Moscow

_\------------------------_

The office was imposing. Old school bricks and columns with big pane glass windows covered on one side by thick green drapes, the other, frost. Pink marble floors that were so well polished you could see the reflections of the many guards. Thin gold wire tables supported heavy, ornate vases. Money and power and Surkov’s mobster past all on display.

There was no receptionist. Probably because you had to make it through three different security checkpoints to get inside. One of the security guards motioned with a rifle for me to follow him. The few suited figures we passed in the hallways didn’t start looking at us until we hit the curved marble staircase in the center of the building. Then came the glances, out of the corners of their eyes. The guard escorted me up, and then walked towards a solid wood door at the end of the upper hallway, brushing one hand over the earpiece he wore, and the other over the brass knob.

“ _She’ll see you now_ ,” he said in Russian, and clicked the door open.

_She?_ I thought, and then the door was open and there was Aide, seated in a stiff wooden chair, glaring at flatscreen monitor. She stopped, hearing the door open, and looked up, concentration giving way to a smile when she saw the two of us.

“Mr. Thorton,” she said in English, leaning back in her chair. “I’m glad you were able to make it. I have the information you requested.”

“ _Do you need anything else, Surkov?_ ” the guard behind me asked.

“Wait-” I started- “you’re not-”

“Call me Sergei, please,” she said, waved the guard off, then motioned to two gold and white upholstered chairs in front of her desk. “Sit.”

I elected to remain standing.

“After the incident at the Embassy, I was hoping we could talk under more relaxed circumstances…without the weapons and armor and…” She waved a hand vaguely. “I imagine wearing civilian clothes is starting to feel…mm…out of place, given the way things have been going for you.”

The feeling of something being wrong was coming back.

“Back at the embassy…who was that?”

She looked confused for a moment, eyebrows furrowing briefly before she seemed to get it. “You mean Andrei? He’s my brother. But we aren’t here to discuss Andryukha. You’re here for Halbech.”

“I’m here for the truth.” I told her, and she sighed.

“Mr. Thorton,” she began, “My identity was a lie of necessity. Imagine being a businessman in the Soviet Union. Now imagine being a female businessman on the world stage. Failing that – the embassy. I have enemies, Michael. And I did not know if you were one of them.”

Something was still wrong, I knew it. Her shoulders slumped a little too convincingly. She’d given up the information a little too quickly.

“I understand what you’re feeling.” She tilted her head, studying my reactions. “You’ve found an ally, but it’s hard to trust that, isn’t it? That things might be going right? Perhaps you will feel more comfortable when I tell you what I’ve found.”

The bad feeling hovered over me, like a hand, waiting to clamp down. For a minute, I regretted not telling Albatross where I was. Or Mina. I was very alone right now.

“As I said, I was able to track down the information you requested. After reading your dossier, however-” she glanced at me over the top of her monitor, and I gave her nothing, not a bit of the lingering trepidation that I was missing something here- “I had a proposal for you.”

“Did you find out what Halbech is doing in Moscow, or not?”

“There’s more to it than that. Please, sit.”

The more she insisted, the less I wanted to. For a good minute we were stuck in a silent staring contest, she refusing to talk and I refusing to sit, until she raised an eyebrow and went back to working on her computer.

I sat.

“Mr. Thorton – Michael…” She ran a hand through her short, pulled back grey and black hair. “I am going to be honest with you. Based on your record, I think you’re someone that can be trusted. I…”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and my stomach dropped.

“I have had dealings with Halbech. In fact, I was their initial contact for smuggling weapons into Moscow…including these missiles you’re looking for.”

And there it was. “Those missiles,” I said, “were used to bring down that airliner in the Middle East.”

“I know…but I think we both know that’s just the beginning. Halbech and I-”

“People _died_.”

“Halbech and I didn’t see eye to eye on the particulars, Michael. We had a falling out.”

I shifted in my chair. Here was Halbech. Here was the enemy. Only a few feet away. All I had to do was stand up.

And what?

I was surrounded. She was surrounded.

I felt like running. Not away, just…running.

“Unfortunately,” she summed it all up, with one small noise, unfortunately, “they’ve found a new partner here in Moscow – a…Konstantin Brayko.”

“Brayko.” Another target. Another Halbech. “Who is he? Businessman, mobster? Arms dealer?”

“He merely has delusions of becoming an arms dealer…which makes him more dangerous. He’s not a man to show restraint in business dealings – but few members of the Russian mafia do.”

“Can you give me details on Brayko and his operation?”

Surkov made a face. “He started out in prostitution then extortion, and now he’s moved up to drug smuggling. The Halbech angle is new…but if an angle is profitable, Brayko is an eager student. Halbech’s arrangement with him is going to cause – repercussions.”

She continued in a rush, after looking at me and getting nothing.

“I am reasonable person,” she lied, “but Brayko is dangerous. He will sell to anyone, provided they have the money. Those missiles – along with the other Halbech munitions – could end up in places where greater tragedies can occur.”

I didn’t think I could feel more ill, but, turns out I was capable of so much more than I thought.

“Is that a threat?” I asked.

“An observation. One that you’ll find bears out.”

It probably would, but that didn’t make it less of a threat. I felt cold, but I didn’t really feel it. Her expression hadn’t changed once, not really.

“If I help you with Brayko, I do not want my past involvement with Halbech exposed. Working with them was a mistake and I understand that.”

I picked at a loose thread on the chair. “I don’t care,” I said.

It didn’t make me feel better. It didn’t make anyone less dead. It did make Surkov’s fingers twitch on the keyboard.

“I don’t care as in threat, or as in observation?” she finally asked.

I said nothing.

After several moments of loud, loud silence, she leaned back into her chair, and pressed the tips of her fingers together.

“I will have the information I found sent to you – and thank you again for saving my life, Michael,” she said, through gritted teeth.

I didn’t say ‘ _you’re welcome_ ’. If it bothered her, I didn’t care. I got up to get away from her, before I starting thinking about all the reasons I should be staying, should be fighting. Shouldn’t let the first true Halbech monster I’d found just sit free.

She was quiet, and spoke up again only when my hand was on the door. When she did, her tone was low, and brittle. It was almost bitter.

“ _Agent_ Thorton,” she emphasized, as I walked away from her. “You used to work for them as well.”

The words joined the other things stuck in my head on the long trip back to base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in game, this mission takes place an hour later  
> as a side side note names in Russian are very gendered, I wanted a) to mention that I am aware of that, and b) idk. but i told myself to make a note of it so here ya go
> 
> ft edits live


	24. Listen!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which successful weapons trafficking in Russia takes a serious hit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im gonna give a heads up that i changed the fight with brako. I loved it, but I also couldn't write it at the time. i do intent to fix this at some point

_Had it been a day? Had it been an hour? I couldn’t tell._

_“So,” Leland droned. “You and Surkov met at the Embassy. During the attack.”_

_The needle pinpricks on the inside of my arms started aching._

_They’d done something._

_It felt like…like being drunk on the smell of burning._

_“Could have timed it better,” I said, too easily baited into talked, too easily tired from saying anything at all. I sat my head down on the desk._

_“If I’d know the VCI were going to…”_ _I said to myself._

_The screens bright, flashing lights. Siren colors, all over the room. Hypnotic. Leland cocked his head toward me, smiling sadly._

_“But_ you _survived…even if many of the Marines stationed at the Embassy did not. An unfortunate coincidence,” he said, one small noise, unfortunate. “Who knew those mercenaries would choose that moment to attack?”_

_“I was only after Surkov…I didn’t mean for anyone else to get in the way.”_

_It sounded too much like a plea. I couldn’t take back the tone._

_“Now, don’t be so down on yourself,” he said, comforting at first. “No one knew the Embassy was going to be attacked.”_

_The table’s surface was warm on my face, the blinking lights on, and off, and on, and then he added with a raised eyebrow, “Did they?”_

_The ache dug in hard._

_I knew his game._

_“_ Someone _knew,” I told him, and forced myself to sit upright._

_He waved it all away, the outline of his hand shifting and splitting into two and merging into one. “Well, I hear most of the Marines died doing their duty…and the VCI suffered_ some _causalities, I imagine, but probably not much._

_“But_ you _…you handled yourself exceptionally well. You must have had help…you’re truly a skilled agent, Mr. Thorton, but one man against several highly trained squads…?”_

_I thought sitting up was hard, but that was nothing. My pulse pressed against the needle pricks in my skin._

_“No, the odds aren’t that good,” he continued._

_“Sometimes,” I said, choking on smoke, “the best method is to send a man in alone. Good help is hard to find…and it usually slows me down anyway.”_

_“Hmmm.” He took a long draw on the cigar. I wanted to snatch it. I wanted to fall asleep. I wanted to shout. I leaned back instead, coughed a little, put everything else into getting control of an arm and swinging it casually back over the chair._

_“Something wrong?” I asked, dizzy._

_“No,” he said, and glanced over at me again, exactly like he’d dissected the newscasts.“But remind me not to play poker with you.”_

_The images on the screen continued._

_“Well,” he said, a slideshow starting in the corner screen, “if it hadn’t been for that attack, I doubt anyone would have known you were in the city. You certainly kept a low profile.”_

_“I’m not in broadcasting, or marketing. So that shouldn’t surprise you.”_

_“I don’t know - it seems you still make an impression on the fairer sex…no matter what the age difference is.”_

_Panic hit. I couldn’t keep it under lock. I felt like jumping up and shaking him, hard. Sis. “What are you talking about?”_

_“SIE.” He pronounced it wrong, but it didn’t matter. My hands uncurled themselves. “In mercenary circles, she’s something of an…old reliable.”_

_“Is that why she’s on your payroll?”_

_His eyebrows bumped up, and the smile relaxed. “Ah, so you backtracked that, did you? Very good. But…back to the reason you were at the Embassy.”_

_He pointed at the screen, the image freezing on an aerial shot. Men in black snowsuits clambered over I-beams, extracting corpses from a mixture of ice and glass and slush and ash._

_“Surkov. You didn’t seem to have much trouble getting information out of her – I imagine you two had a cordial talk while the bullets were flying.”_

_“She cooperated.”_

_“She told you who had the Halbech missiles_ and _she gave you a name.”_

_“Yes…” The list never ended, Surkov and Leland and- “Konstantin Brayko.”_

_“Ah, Brayko.” Leland stirred the air with a limp hand, “What_ is _it about the younger generation? At least Surkov was a businessman…they pretend to obey the law, but Konstantin? There’s a story I’d like to hear…up-and-coming Russian mobster meets rogue American agent. What could the two of you_ possibly _have to talk about?”_

_Brayko’s mansion was a far cry from the embassy, but when an image of the burning wreckage of one replaced the burning wreckage of another, I couldn’t tell the difference._

_“How video killed the radio star,” I said, and he laughed, the wreckage replaced by the late Brayko’s pockmarked skeletal face…_

 

_\----------------------------_

Monday Evening, 17:32

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Moscow

\----------------------------

Brayko – a baby-faced psycho with a penchant for dicing people up when deals didn’t go his way. Not respected – feared. Grigori wouldn’t tell me much. He only blanched and suggested I stay out of Brayko’s way. I didn’t have time for that.

I strapped on the rifle, got my pistol, and headed for the door. Mina wasn’t around yet. Fine. I’d do it myself. One temperamental man-child and a mansion full of coked-up mobsters. It’d be fine. Lazo’s yacht hadn’t been a problem, until G22 showed up and –

I stopped, hand above the front door handle. I could call Albatross. I could. I…could.

I couldn’t think of a good reason not to. So I stopped thinking about it. It’d be fine.

G22, as always, had other ideas.

 

\----------------------------

18:30

Brayko’s Mansion

Outskirts of Moscow

\----------------------------

“So,” Mina finished up, “when you’re going after Brayko, you can either sneak in or hit the front gate, guns blazing. Whichever you chose, I suggest you _not_ go in alone.”

“Actually, I already got both options covered, and I’ve got…”

Three G22 gathered before the ostentatious column-ridden oversized front façade of Brayko’s poor attempt at architecture, got the massive front doors open with a combination of force, and more force, and then they were gone.

“-I _had_ company,” I corrected.

“What do you mean?” The sound of furious typing came through. “Where _are_ you?”

“I’m inside Brayko’s compound. Albatross was…nice enough to leave an opening for me.”

Better _not_ to bring up how three of them had shown up at my door, grabbed my arms, and hadn’t given me much choice in the matter. In their defense, they brought coffee and snacks.

The typing resumed after a heavy sigh.

The inside of the mansions was as hideous as the outside. Pale yellow stucco walls, a jumble of neon colored art deco prints and statuettes scattered up and down the entrance hallway, and a dangling chandelier that was probably taller than me.

“Mike, the mansion’s security systems are a little dated.”

_No kidding._ “So’s the décor.”

“I think I can tap into the surveillance systems and use it to track down Brayko, and any Halbech data.” She clicked her tongue. “This whole place is wired on _one_ circuit.”

“Halbech data first, Brayko later.”

“Gimme a minute.”

I walked down the hall, prodding open doors at random. Most of the hinges squeaked mercilessly, but no one came running. They were probably busy with G22. The perks of having backup.

“All right,” Mina said. “I’ve isolated the main server. Looks like it’s in the basement. A _lot_ of traffic through there, it’s probably the main security system, too.”

“And Brayko?”

“Can’t track him down – so be careful.”

“You know me,” I said. And she sighed again.

 

* * *

 

At least I knew where Brayko’s guards had gone.

A large clump of them were dead in a blacklit arcade room. Some were draped over flashing retro consoles with precise gunshot wounds in the front and backs of their heads. The rest were on the ground, limbs at odd angles, spittle mixing with foam in puddles under their mouth. G22 didn’t mess around.

The noise of all the machines chattering at once ached. What was it with mobsters and-

“Are you in an _arcade_?” Mina said, sounding excited.

Dead bodies and kids and pistols and gloves. “Yeah,” I said. “How’d you know?”

“I recognized the sound of Galaxy Invaders.” The noise was too much. “I used to play that all the time in high school.”

“No kidding,” I told her, and starting searching the room. There it was, Galaxy Invaders, in a row of four against the far wall. Tall silver case, blinking blue lights.

“That’s me,” she said, and if she wasn’t pointing a thumb at herself, I would have been surprised. “Mina Tang – gamer girl. I’m trusting you with my secret, Thorton.”

The jabbing of sharp PINGPINGPINGS and BLEEPBLORPS couldn’t stop the smile.

“I don’t think Brayko deserves owning it.”

“Probably not.”

“Well, then,” I said, and nestled my rifle against my shoulder. “One high score, comin’ up.”

The screen died in a mess of sparks and glass shards, accompanied by a spluttering BBBBEEEEEeeeeepeepeppppp. The room felt a little bigger without the noise, so I added a line across the adjacent cabinets, too.

“I think,” Mina concluded after a moment’s pause, “that’s cheat-”

She was interrupted by the sudden crackling of a PA system. A rough voice began whining in heavily accented English.

“You bore the _shit_ outta me! I ask you a question, you sit there, I cut you, you sit there, I-”

“Working on tracking it,” Mina said, all lightness gone.

I was running the moment I heard _cut_. I had a sinking feeling, a suspicion. A thought about why G22 had been so damn interested in this place, why they had moved so fast, why they’d come to get me, why Albatross was too busy to intrude on Mina and I. There was only one other G22 operative in Moscow working on the same things as me, as far as I knew.

Sis.

If Brayko had…

She was a _kid._

I ran. The arcade led to another hallway, open doors leading to lounges and libraries and empty rooms with dust covers on the furniture. All of it empty, more hallways and more rooms and no guards, and no G22.

“Where I am going, Mina?”

“Stay put, I’m working on it.”

Good advice. Impossible to follow.

“Ha!” laughed the man on the PA, over a barely discernible whimper. “Close shave this time, eh?”

I hit a corner in the hallway, and busted the handle of a locked door off with a hit from my rifle that sent soreness hammering up through the aching scratches on my arm. It was an exit, to a path and a garden. Useless. Fuck.

“Come on…” Mina said to herself.

There was no one out here. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I-

“Got it!” Mina exclaimed. I pressed my earpiece closer, instinctively. “The surveillance feed, it’s coming from-”

Then she stopped.

“What?”

“Mike…” she said, trailing her words. “I think…I think that’s _Albatross_ Brayko’s torturing.”

“Wait,” Relief mixing with confusion, an unsteady combination. I stopped walking, starting bouncing from foot to foot. “He came? He let himself get _captured_ _?”_

“If he talks, he could expose you. But if he doesn’t, then he’s dead, and Mike…from the sound of it, I don’t know how much longer he’s going to last.”

“Dammit.” So much for getting the data and getting out. “Where is he?”

“Albatross and Brayko are in the mansion’s guest house, through the gardens, if I read the signal right.”

“I have no idea how he’s survived in this business for so long.”

“You don’t have much time,” she said, tense.

“Can you contact his backup, let him know where he is?” The garden path wandered in a wide arc between low hanging tree branches. I cut through them, across the snow, towards the dark front of a small grey house.

“Mina?”

“I can’t,” she said, apologetically. “I’m sorry. Hurry.”

 

The interior of the guest house was dark, and hushed. LED light from the lampposts shone through the wide windows, an ugly blue that covered the white carpet of the completely empty front room.

“Back of the house. Someone’s shut of the feed, Mike, so be careful,” Mina whispered.

I crossed the room, sticking to the walls, the carpet so thick I left footprints. The carved wooden door in the back wall was slightly ajar, no light from inside, no sound, no cursing or crying, or anything. Dead silence.

I crouched down, pistol in hand, and pushed the door lightly inward. It went without squeaking.

_Do or die_ , I thought. And I rolled in to the bare room, coming up and bracing on one knee, drawing lines and measuring angles without thinking.

Light glinted off blood flecked glasses.

“Albatross?” I asked, uncertain, because the slumped over pile of bones and skin attached to a chair by thick hempen ropes looked so transformed-

“Hmmm…ah, Mike,” he mumbled, like someone waking up too early. There were overlapping gashes all up and down his exposed arms, some continuing under the torn sleeves of a blood-damp cotton shirt. The knife wounds on his face were worse.

I used my own knife to work at the knots around his arms and shoeless legs.

“I’d get up…” He was hardly audible. I cut faster. “But I’m in a lot of pain that…I’m trying to ignore.”

Legs free. Now arms. “Hold on, Albatross. Let me get you out of there.”

“Huh…?” he said, arms falling free from behind the chair.

“Very well,” he added. Then he tried to push himself up, tried and failed and I had to grab him before he fell.

“You can’t stand,” I told him.

“I can. Don’t…do not…” he said, trying to squirm free of my grip with very little energy in his motions. “Do not let Brayko escape. If he uses…if he…what he stole from Halbech…if he…”

Albatross’ breathing was getting faster, panicked, bad bad news. I allowed him to fight his way to the floor, then propped him up against a wall.

“After what I’ve done to his arcade? I don't think he'll run. He’s bound to be pissed.”

That, alarmingly, earned a sarcastic snort from him, which, as far as I knew, was the equivalent of hysterical laughter. Where was-

-blue beam, shining through the door-

- _G22_. Oh.

And just as suddenly no more G22, the figure collapsing forward in the hallway, SMG fire explaining the what and how, grating Russian curses explaining the who.

_Where_?

I laced Albatross’ blood and sweat stained hands around my pistol. It was better than nothing.

Outside the door, return fire – a shotgun. I slipped out between shots in time to see a G22 falling backwards out of the front door, a short and skeletal blond man in a bright purple cheetah print coat slipping past the body into the garden, weak lamplight reflecting off the pair of brassy gold SMGS in his hands. The G22 spasmed weakly. I jumped them faster than Brayko had. His coat made for an excellent target, and a minute later he pitched forward into the slushy snow dirt beside the path.

I went over to haul him up, and somehow, he was still writhing on the ground, clawing his way through the mud with one hand, the other stretching for one of his SMGs. Except for the sharpness of the breaths that permeated his words, he spoke like nothing had happened.

“ _Messed up…my jacket,_ ” he spat in Russian though huffed wheezes, and got his first finger on the gold-plated barrel.

Yeah, I had one of those too. I pointed it at his head, and got a boot on his outstretched arm, right above a bloody dragon-tattoo. I waited until he uncurled his finger from the trigger to step away, and kick the gun as far as I could.

“ _Cost a fortune…_ ” he muttered weakly, moving to wipe at some blood on his jacket cuff. Like the coat was the only problem. Like he hadn’t just been knocked down by multiple rifle rounds to the back. “ _Got all this blood on it.”_

I rolled Brayko over with a boot. He offered no resistance, his head flopping back into the slush so that he was looking up at me. Or maybe past me, at the stars. His eyes, with their tiny dilated pupils, were shaking back and forth.

“ _With that color scheme,_ ” I said, “ _how can you tell?_ ”

“ _Why the_ _fuck are you here?_ ” he rasped, eyes focusing as if this was the first time he’d seen me. “ _Did I kill someone you know? Shoot your fucking dog? Fuck your girl?_ ”

“ _I was just stopping by, saw the lights on, figured I’d see who was home. And no -_ _you didn’t shoot my girl_ or _fuck my dog._ ”

“ _Then…what?,”_ he said, frowning, sounding as if he felt more inconvenienced by everything than upset, or afraid, or injured. _“What is all this shit about?!_ ”

Whatever he was strung out on – cocaine, probably – was doing a number on his pulse. Blood bubbled rhythmically from an exit wound to the left of his stomach.

_“That is_ exactly- _”_ I said, and placed a boot over the wound, leaning in hard- _“what I asked when I saw this place.”_

_“Look – we can work something out, not… not…”_ he spluttered. Wide eyes combined with pin head pupils gave him even more of an alien look.

“ _Perhaps…_ ” I said, while he wriggled under my foot, “ _Perhaps you can clear something up for me, Brayko. Sure, you’re a rich punk, but you’re also small time and local._ _You’re a city guy, not a world traveler-_ ”

“ _I travel,_ ” he interrupted, “ _all the time. The world? I can go anywhere I want, any city, any time.”_

“ _Yeah, but, you workin’ with Halbech doesn’t make sense – see, they’ve got standards._ ”

“ _Halbech?”_ His skin went even paler than it already was. _“Who the_ fuck _told you that? I’m no, ah,_ _mm_ …corporate suit.”

“ _Leave that for assholes like Surkov,_ ” he added sourly.

 “ _You and Halbech,_ ” I said, again, pressed more on her arm even while the mud enveloped him.

“ _We don’t do business,”_ he protested. _“I’d_ like _to, but I just messed up their pipeline ‘cause_ Surkov _was getting fat on it._ _Look – this place? That house? Gifts, to you. The shit in my vault? That’s only one vault I got. I can set you up for_ life.”

“ _If I let you live, you mean._ ” And I honestly, honestly wasn’t inclined to. I should. I knew it was the right thing to do. Hand him over to the authorities, whoever they were, at this point.

But there was Flight 6133.

And there was the embassy.

And there were my neighbors who were afraid to die right now.

Here was Halbech, right here, right now. And he wouldn’t even tell me the truth about it.

Well.

Not _yet._

“ _Yeah, the big ‘if’, huh?_ ” He shrugged weakly, mud sludge clinging to his jacket. “ _I wouldn’t ask, except…except something about this. You didn’t come here to kill me._ ”

It was true, in a sense. I’d come here for proof. For concrete proof.

Instead I had dead G22s, maybe a dead Albatross, and…

And that was proof enough, I thought. But…

I’d come here for a reason.

“ _Surkov claims you had the Halbech data records,”_ I said. _“That…that’s why I’m here._ ”

“ _Serezh - Sergei?_ ” He tensed, and started thrashing wildly again. “ _Surkov was the one dealing with Halbech, not me!_ ”

_“I know,”_ I said, running out of patience. _“She told me.”_

_“She_ told _you?!”_ he shouted, arm straining against my boot, failing to do anything except send his heart rate back up and send more blood out from under the soles of my boots. Then, with a heaved sigh, he gave up and slumped back into the mud.

“ _We worked together for year, and that arrogant_ _fuck_ _didn’t…didn’t breathe a word about it – or the money. That’s why I hijacked the data and the weapons in the first place, to make a point to that lying...but then you come along, and she tells you everything_?

“ _Fucking bullshit,_ ” he concluded, the word seeming more habit than anything. The energy was leaking out of him.

I agreed. Bullshit. If Surkov and Brayko had been working together, but Brayko truly didn’t know anything about Halbech, had never had a chance to, and even afterwards, had needed to operate from a point of sabotaging Halbech operations from the outside, rather than from the inside…

No. Surkov _had_ lied but Brayko _was_ lying.

“ _I_ _think,_ ” I suggested, “ _it’s your attitude. You’re a little…loud for her tastes._ ”

“ _Ah, fuck it._ ” He slapped her other hand in the mud. “ _I wish you’d killed me – this day has been the shits._ ”

Brayko was two for two. A shitty day.

Like the trainyard. When unknown Russian mobsters had attacked a Halbech train full of weapons. I’d thought they been trying to steal them, but…had they? When I first saw them, hadn’t they just been fighting the VCI? Had I ever actually seen them going for the weapons?

No. Surkov wasn’t Halbech.

The VCI…was…connected to Halbech? Somehow? But they’d gone after Surkov, at the embassy.

No. No, Surkov wasn’t lying. I hadn’t truly sat there and let…and let…and let someone responsible for all this just…

I had though, hadn’t I? Walked away even though I knew she _used_ to work for them.

Who’s to say she ever really stopped?

“ _Look – we can make a deal, you and me,”_ Brayko said, watching me as if from a distance. The words were failing him. He was getting quieter and quieter. Surkov wasn’t Halbech anymore. Surkov- “ _I pay, all you have to do is let me walk out of here – never see me again.”_

I looked down at the gun in my hand. Al-Samad. Then I looked back at the guest house, where Albatross was hopefully still holding my pistol.

_Yulian’s_ pistol.

 “ _Unless, of course,_ ” Brayko tacked on, eyes flicking up to mine, a smidgen of pointless hopefulness pushing the lids open, “ _you need anything else, maybe? I-_ ”

He was dead before I knew it, before he finished his second sentence, the revolver shot ringing in my ears until everything was quiet again.

I was shocked for a moment. I checked my own gun, I checked my own hands, and I knew I hadn’t done it but I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, I had.

But I hadn’t. Fast footsteps run up behind me. A G22 voice box reported monotonously, _“Target has been eliminated.”_

I gestured to the guest house, and one G22 dashed past. The other set of footsteps remained quiet for a second. Her short shadow ended beside me. Brayko lay still in the snow, and she checked his long-gone pulse before she stood, and tugged me along in the wake of the other G22.

 

The G22 was checking on Albatross when Sis and I walked in. A discarded glove lay on the floor, the G22’s dark fingers encircling Albatross’ wrist, even while his hand flopped lifelessly over theirs. His eyes were closed, and my pistol was on the floor next to him, and no one said anything. 

Sis’s grip on my hand tightened. She took a half-step, stopped, said nothing. Neither did I. Not even when the G22’s helmet swiveled towards us, and with the smallest motion, nodded.

Then Sis did move, she and G22 exchanging signs in a flurry. The two had Albatross up and in between them, heading back for the door, by the time I registered that anything was happening.

 

* * *

 

_“So…somehow, you slipped into the mansion-” From Leland, an unmistakable note of pride, a nod, dull taping on the table- “without being detected.”_

_“Did I?” The mansion was burning on screen. G22 hadn’t believed in leaving traces behind. And they were angry. “That’s a_ serious _charge, Leland, breaking-and-entering-”_

_“-trespassing-” he added._

_“-I’m hurt,” I said, intending it as a barb, as a joke. As his sign that this endless parade of the last three months couldn’t get to me._

_Lies, all of it. Lies and a game I was playing that I didn’t have to win, that I didn’t have to win. I just had to make it, until everyone else arrived._

_If I could breathe, if I could get out of this room for a second, if I could go look at the night sky I might be okay._

_But as it was I was drowning in midair._

_And he kept on smoking._

_“And you avoided the security systems,” he listed, “and the guards,_ and _gained access to Brayko’s systems.”_

_“Assuming I did any of that…is there something wrong?”_

_“Hardly,” he said. I hated him. “If you were there, and we have evidence you were, then you must have had a good reason – and I’d be curious to know what you found.”_

_I hated him. My arms hurt. I couldn’t shut up._

_“Bad taste and lots of it,” I said. “You...you would have liked the art he had hanging there. I mean-”_

_He gazed down. I smirked. It took too much out of me_

_“-_ if _I had been there at all,” I said, with a shrug._

_“Fine,” Leland said, after a beat. “You seem to take pride in being untraceable, Thorton, it’s an impressive skill...and one that’s_ wasted _in government.”_

_He sighed. “Video footage was recovered from the security cameras at the mansion…although not many cameras were left intact.”_

_“So why the twenty questions then?_ Obviously _, you know_ everything _that happened in the mansion already.”_

_On the table, his fingers tensed. Obviously. Everything. Ha, he didn’t know anything. But I did. G22. G22. G22. I shouted it internally._

_“Not exactly,” he admitted. “Because you weren’t the only one attacking the place…just like the embassy.”_

_“True, the two missions had a lot in common…” It was a dangerous, dangerous thing to do, to talk about it, but I hated him, and I wanted him to know it. “Mostly wrong place, wrong time, bad coincidences, all that-”_

_“Or,” he stopped me with a glare, eyes locking on, “perhaps you’re not a lone agent after all. There’s only so many coincidences that can happened before they stop being coincidences.”_

_I let him inspect my eyes, and that took effort. Took a lot more to laugh at him. “Do you think I actually plan these moment? You’re givin’ me a lot of credit for winging it…I’ll take the compliment, but trust me. Blind luck is more my ally than anything else.”_

_“Of course.”_

_The laughing bothered him. He sat stiff in his chair. So laughed again._

_“_ Whatever _the reason,” he continued, forcefully, “Brayko certainly had a way with trespassers. I heard he captured the leader of the attackers, tortured them.”_

_Push away the memories and smile at him._

_“I wouldn’t have put it past him. He had a temper.”_

_“So you didn’t come across a victim? No signs of anyone being tortured?” The mental images of all of us at the hospital came back too quickly, the same hospital I’d brought Surkov some…what? Two, three days earlier? “Nothing you saw or heard?”_

_“Being in that place was torture enough,” I said. Sis, tapping the waiting room armrest. The G22, ditching his gear in a back alley and pacing the room endlessly. Cameras everywhere._

_Mina telling me to go. Sis grabbing at my arm every time I got up._

_“Then whoever was being…interrogated…must have somehow been able to get away when you had your fight with Brayko.”_

_“Or they were rescued,” I said, cutting to close to the truth._

_I’d asked her, how do I say, everything’s gonna be fine?_

_She’d taught me how to say, please don’t go ((ANsdf repeat this later)), instead. First thing she ever said to me._

_Last thing, too._

_Yet here I was._

_“Maybe,” I said. Why shouldn’t I tell him? Leland couldn’t do anything to stop me. “And maybe whoever rescued them didn’t like the thought of leaving someone to die at Brayko’s hands. But hey-”_

_No. He was grinning with the smallest bit of a sneer._

_“-that’s just a guess.”_

_“Sounds like someone with a code of ethics.”_

_“Do you even know what a code of ethics is?”_

_I wanted him to stop looking satisfied, to go back to glaring, but he leaned back magnanimously, twisted his cigar._

_“It’s all relative. For example, an action can be illegal – but_ not _unethical. And vice versa. The two-” smoky tendrils of grey-white escaped between his teeth- “do not overlap as much as government prosecutors would think.”_

_I hated him._

_“Oh, is this philosophy class now? And me without my notebook and pencil.”_

_“Hnh.” And he finally shut up, lips pressing together._

_Several of the screens turned off, after a minute. The rest kept looping the footage of walls and ceilings falling to bits, G22 detonations eliminating all evidence of the mission. The fire lighting up the smoke in the room. Orange red glow without the warmth. They’d burned it down and then hospital and then I didn’t hear from them for-_

_I realized suddenly that Leland and I were breathing in synch, and it shocked me so badly, I jerked back from the table, eyes snapping to him._

_“In the end,” he said, through the dim red haze, “you found Brayko. And dealt with him.”_

_The one victory. Possibly, now that everything I’d seen and done was laid out, the only thing I’d actually been able to accomplish._

_The only time I’d actually done more good than harm._

_And the only time I hadn’t actually been responsible for it._

_“He’s out of the picture,” I said. “I got the intel I needed, enough to shut down your shipments. With Brayko out of the picture, you got nothing.”_

_He didn’t see bothered. And that bothered me more than anything he’d said yet. If we missed something – we didn’t miss anything. Not this time. Never again._

_“Yes…how embarrassing for us, years of work, ruined.” He talked like he was about to get up and pat my head. “It’ll take us some time to find a new contact in Moscow…if we find one at all. You’re thorough, Thorton, I’ll give you that. For a minute there…_

_“For a minute there, I thought we’d underestimated you.”_

_He paused. “But I doubt you’ll figure it out in time.”_

 

\----------------------------

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Moscow

\----------------------------

I paced back and forth, the coffee table’s presence unimportant.

“She underestimated you,” Mina said, working to calm me down. I knew she what she doing. I chose to ignore it. 

“She thought I was too dumb to figure it out in time.” My teeth hurt from grinding them together. Albatross was dying in a hospital, Sis was probably pacing by now too, Surkov’s fault, all of this on her, and me not noticing? I _had_ been too dumb to see through her. But Mina had the data now. This wasn’t on Surkov, this was on me, I let this happen.

I jumped on the table again, jumped off on the other side.

“Then you have the upper hand,” Mina pointed out. “I don’t think anyone knows what happened in the mansion yet…and Surkov’s already under the radar, for now.”

“Might be a little too early for congratulations. I need to get her, first.”

“Tonight?”

She sounded surprised. I ignored that too.

“Got a fix on where she’s hiding yet?”

“Well…actually…in doing the background check, I ran a batch file to track any connections or equity Surkov has in local companies…especially dummy corporations.”

And table, and floor. At least one of us had been slightly suspicious. Had been smart. Had thought things through.

“One rose to the top,” she explained, tracking my movements, “Molotek. It’s local, and it’s been shut down for months.”

“Why Molotek?”

“Because the batch file _also_ checks keycard, cell phone, and internet activity, and all of those have been detected at Molotek in the past 24 hours – and, according to the timestamps, not long after you paid Surkov a visit.”

“Well done, Mina. In fact, the next time I go rogue and I’m hunted down by every intelligence agency in the world, you’re gonna be the first one I call.”

“Agent Thorton.” She rose her eyebrows at me. “I may even do you the honor of answering the phone -  if I don’t have any other job offers. But, Mike, when you go to Molotek, watch yourself, okay? Surkov, she’s-”

I hit the table, and I decided not to go over it, because that was going to make me seem insincere. “I’ll be careful, I promise. I won’t blow anything up or shoot anyone. Unless I have to.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

 

\----------------------------

21:48

Molotek Offices

Moscow

\----------------------------

Surkov’s guards didn’t stand a chance. The lights in the building were out, the carpet muffled my movements. The maze of dingy cubicles blocked what sight lines they had left.

“Security system’s quiet,” Mina whispered. Dust mites settled on the bodies.

“Should I be concerned?”

“You aren’t already?”                     

Suspicious. Smart. I could do that. I put my karambit knife back in its place in my boot and pulled my rifle free instead. Upstairs, a narrow, cluttered hallway was filled with boxes of dusty files stacked outside of doors. A glowing red exit sign at the end illuminated a metal emergency exit door.

A man in a suit came rushing out of a doorway beside the pool of sickly light, his movement halted by the rifle round in his chest. Another followed him out, and then followed him to the ground. And then…

Then there Surkov was, slightly singed slacks covering a white ankle cast, a sleek grey laptop in one arm, a pistol in the other hand. She was being hustled out of the door by a wall of a man with no hair and a heavy gold medal hanging around a thick neck. He took two rounds to the torso like it was nothing. The one in his eye? Not so much.

“Surkov is-” Mina started.

“I know.” It took me several precious seconds to make it outside, and by the time I did, Surkov was already down the stairs, scuttling across the walled-in back parking lot towards…what? She realized how alone she was the same second as me.

I knew the shot would hit before I even lined it up. I didn’t even have to look. Everything made sense.

First there was Surkov’s involuntary scream as the bones in her ankle fragmented, the pieces spearing tendons and bullet-torn muscles. Then a thump and a clatter as she, her laptop, and her pistol met ground. Finally, whimpering, the noises disappearing behind a drawn mask as I walked up.

“Mr. Thorton. Just when I think you can’t…irritate me any more…” she started, breath catching every few words. I scooped up her laptop and kicked her pistol out of the way. “Thought Brayko would have been a sufficient distraction, but it seems…I underestimated you. So what are you here for, to kill me?”

“You sent me after Brayko. Why?”

“You left yourself open to the possibility.” The derision seemed to fill her with a little more oomph, despite the trembling. “Really, it was a simple match – two birds, one bullet.”

“And _you_ were the one working with Halbech all along-”

“Again,” she criticized, “you jump to conclusions. I don’t have time _or_ patience to explain-”

I put her laptop back down and unhooked my rifle while she whined. The barrel, strategically pointed at the remains of her foot, ended her sentence abruptly.

“What do you intended to do now, Thorton?” she asked bitterly, after two seconds passed and her foot remained attached to her leg. “Shoot me again?”

“I was hoping we could talk, actually. That’s all I wanted to do until you made this difficult for us.”

“Sorry to inconvenience you,” she spat, a little bit of blood trailing out, the tip of a cut visible on the inside of her bottom lip.

“I need everything you have on Halbech. Now.” The cops would be – would the cops be here soon? “I’m in a hurry.”

“You…you are a terrible negotiator.”

This time, instead of simply hinting at a threat, I jabbed the open wound with the barrel. A shudder went through her, and she failed to keep her hand from reaching down to the bloody mess.

“Let’s not make this any more painful than it has to be, Surkov.”

“You shoot me,” she wheezed, “now you want me to tell you everything? In…in exchange for what? If I tell you, you’ll only kill me-”

Two rounds in the stomach later, I had a bargaining chip.

_“Jesus,_ Mike!” Mina exclaimed.

“You’ll bleed out in twenty minutes. Maybe thirty.” I told Surkov plainly, when she came to a moment later. “I can make those minutes last years.”

It took one of those minutes for her to stop gaping. Another few seconds for her to get her eyes up to mine. Then past them, to the gold rifle in my hands.

“ _Kostya – did you…”_ she asked in Russian, faint voice disappearing into the air.

“ _Years, Sergei.”_

She didn’t make the effort to stem the rivulets of blood collecting on the front of her soaked button down. When she did respond, the words moved out of her like she was hardly there.

“ _If bringing down Halbech is your mission, I… The records you want…the ones incrimin- inmicrin- criminin-”_ She gave up on the word with a soft exhale. _“The Halbech records. They are on my Embassy workstation. My laptop…look for the encryption codes in my contact list, under ‘Jacob’.”_

_“Thank you, Surkov.”_

Her eyes slid shut in response.

“You got that?” I asked Mina.

“Yeah.”

“Can you call the cops? And an ambulance?”

One of Surkov’s eyes cracked open a sliver.

“I’ve already called the local hospitals,” Mina said, with yet another unmistakable note of surprise. “Help is on the way. Now get out of there.”             

“Will do. Mike out.” I shut it off, well on my way to getting free of this place, when Surkov had the bright idea to start talking again.

_“Konstantin…chto sluchilos'?”_ A deep cough, and I mentally downgraded her remaining time by about ten minutes.

“ _Don’t move,_ ” I warned her, and kept walking.

 

* * *

 

_"I have to hand it to you, Mr. Thorton," Leland said, fake regret, fake concession, fake motions with his hands as if they were all made of plastic. "You-"_

_Something buzzed. Loudly. His smile went tight. His finger ran over his tie._

_Bad news for him. Good news for me._

_"You should get that,” I said, through a cough. “Don't worry, I'll wait."_

_He leaned hard on the table and pushed himself up. He silences the phone in his pocket with one jab. The phone silenced him with whatever it displayed on the screen. He didn't say anything, no words leaking out and dripping on to the floor._ Really _bad news for him, then._

_A guard, bulky in camouflage combat gear, tromped in before Leland moved any further. Rifle held loosely, confidently across her chest. Looking straight ahead, not at me, not at Leland's curling upper lip._

_"Armed guard?” I said. “Flattery'll get you nowhere, Leland."_

_The disgust twisting his face around was aimed at the door. For the first time, he ignored me completely._

_"Watch him," he told the guard. He didn't get a nod in return, no acknowledgement. Something happening beneath the surface, weighing more heavily on the air than the smoke. I reached to put it together and Surkov lied to me from behind her marble desk, I_ used _to be Halbech, we had a falling out, I regret-_

_Fake fake fake regret, concession. No space to think in here. Wait for G22. The mission. Reckoning. Madison._

_Leland punched keys in, letters echoing. I rolled my head over towards him._

_"What happened?"_ _I asked._

_He inspected the guard's clunky boots, the matte rifle in her hands, her empty stare. His own features settled, like a big rock sinking in a scummy pond. He looked back over his shoulder at me._

_"This shouldn't take long. Sit tight, Mr. Thorton," he said, and then he walked out, taking half the smoke with him. The hall was dark outside, then the door was closed, and they had cameras, analysts, Parker probably but I dropped my head back to the table and tried to down the clean air before it was too late._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> d79-89  
> ft edits live


	25. What means my name to you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rome is departed for

Tuesday

_They think Albatross is going to be okay. Sis and the G22 from the hospital stopped by to tell me. I think Sis wanted to stay and talk, but she was swaying on her feet, hadn’t slept, and neither had I, so she just left. It’s funny. We’ve probably been up watching the same broadcasts on repeat. The embassy, the embassy, the embassy. Brayko’s mansion blowing up barely made thirty seconds of airtime. I’ve been playing catch up this whole time, always behind. Four days since then, four days...none of us saw it coming and we’re the ones who’re supposed to know what’s going on._

_What else have we missed?_

 

* * *

 

_“…and her info on the encryption codes checks out. but…mike?”_

The harsh white irradiating from the screen of Sukov’s laptop was the only light in the room. Embassy truthers had made their way onto the newscasts by evening, and that had been the end of that. I spent the rest of the night spent on the sofa, staring at black lines of data over and over. Finally, Mina’s rapid-fire emails arrived, all coming in one after another.

_“as far as i can tell, surkov was being honest about halbech. the data is pretty confusing, but it looks like she really was trying to get out._

_"one of halbech international’s guys, a ‘vic werner’, has got a hold on her, keeping her in line per orders of leland, so that confirms that._

_"anyway i think she was getting fed up with it – again, this is all rough analysis, michael. i can’t find any trace of her in the city. never checked into the hospital, no police reports. my guess is she got smart and got out, at least for now._

_"that, plus brayko being out of the picture…i don’t know what else you can do here. i’m still trying trace any other weapons shipments, but honesty?_

_"surkov’s data is dense and it’s going to take me a while to work through it all. and we didn’t exactly come here to save russia from a surplus of kalashnikovs. time to move on?_

_"let me know what you think.”_

_“Agreed,”_ I wrote. She would want more than that from me, and she deserved it, too, but I didn’t have anything else to say. Three weeks in Russia, and for what? _Зачем?_ The answer had been playing on the television non-stop for the past four days. Answering her meant thinking about that, and really, what was the point?

My email pinged, screen flashing once, and I started. I hadn’t written that message, had I?

I clicked open my email again, scrolling, and it wasn’t Mina. It wasn’t even Scarlet. For some reason, there was an email from Sean Darcy sitting in my inbox. I was almost happy, for a minute. If ever I could have used another ally… Then I remembered the things congress had been saying on the news for the past few days. I knew before I read it that nothing good was about to happen, but I tried to spend the last few seconds hopeful.

_Hey Mike,_ it started, and seeing my name from someone who knew what that meant was the only good part of the email.

_I wanted to congratulate you on surviving this long,_ he wrote. _You’re a scrappy agent – I see why Westridge wanted you on the team._

_As a courtesy – one professional to another, I wanted to let you know I’m on the hunt for you. Now, you’re a proud man, and I never pegged you for the type of guy to surrender…but if you turn yourself in, I promise I’ll accept your white flag like a gentleman and take you in alive._

_Or you can keep running...in which case, I will have to kill you – nothing personal, my friend. Just business._

_-SeanD_

Sean Darcy, Halbech traitor. The whole time, I'd never _actually_ imagined- Never _seriously_ believed-

Then again, what did it matter? What did it matter what I’d imagined, or what I’d believed? The only thing that mattered now was what was happening, and what was true. So what. I’d get a new, more secure email, and he’d become just one more person with my number. I’d never see he and Yancy again, so, what did it matter?

I created a new response to Mina.

_Agreed, even if technically, Halbech doesn’t sell Kalashnikovs. I’m sick of this weather, so I’m thinking – Rome?_

_By the way…_

The cursor blinked.

And blinked.

And blinked.

After a minute of letting the cursor ping in and out of existence, I copied-pasted Sean’s email directly.

_I don’t honestly know,_ I added, because she'd expect more and I didn't have anything but she deserved it, _whether I’d want to be you or me right now._

_Actually, that’s a lie,_ I lied, _and I know it. I am going to enjoy Rome. Maybe I’ll even send you a postcard._

_But look on the bright side. A friend told me we were gonna stomp Halbech into the ground. And if she's right, which she *occasionally* is, you'll get the last laugh. Nothing better than that, right?_

_In all seriousness, though…watch your back, and be careful. I know that’s your line, but it’s a good one._

I sent it, the last email from Michael Thorton, Halbech Claims and Acquisition.

It felt right.

 

* * *

 

It was time to leave.

Clothes, check. PDA and Surkov’s- no, _my_ newly reformatted laptop. Check. The pistol, the gold rifle, the gold SMGs – arrangements made. It should have taken longer to pack up. Even with what little I was bringing.

Some things almost didn’t make it – the book of Keats, for one. It wasn’t mine, and I didn’t need it. Sean Darcy’s picture – that wasn’t mine either, not anymore, not really. Sis’ locket – but I doubt she would take it back. G22’s got more important things to cope with right now.

I tided up. Washes dishes, took out trash, burned paperwork. I told myself it was good practice not to leave any traces, but it truth, it was late at night, and I was stalling.

I told myself it was good practice not to leave any traces, and then I was doing a final once over in the kitchen, and I spotted my sunglasses.

Good practice not to leave any traces, but I left them all the same, on the small table in front of the windows, facing outwards, watching the snow fall lightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ft edits live


	26. ITALY: Judith and Holofernes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a relocation to Italy takes place, and more importantly, in which a boring party gets interesting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the donatello one
> 
>  *****IMPORTANT NOTE*****  
>  Major edits were applied to the couple parts, which changed several of the character's backstories and relationships. These edits HAVE NOT yet been carried through to Rome. These changes probably **won't** be very significant at for Rome as most those characters are not present; either way, internal canon integrity will be fixed very soon! thanks for dropping by!

\------------------------

Thursday, 3/6, 16:16

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome, Italy

\------------------------

_> getting situated?_

_> >Niiiice place. I kinda hope this operation lasts a while, I could get used to this._

I wrote. Top floor of a plaster and orange tile townhouse, with a little patio outside resting on somebody else’s roof. There was ivy growing up the sides of the building, looked like something out of a postcard. And the noon sunshine. It was getting into everything, through clouded glass windows, falling on polished wooden floors. A bit excessive at times – an overabundance of antique lamps and two bedrooms. One without windows, where I’d hastily dumped most my stuff. Furniture that must have come out of some dusty back alley shop where only the locals went. A black gaming system and a stack of CDs. And of course, a gigantic wall TV with access to every newscast you could ever want to see.

I’d elected to sit outside with my laptop instead.

 _> _ _:)_

>> _What do we got?_

The sounds of cars puttering around on the main streets bounced down the narrow lane, the hum interrupted here and there by snatches of words and laughter and shouting.

> _from the info Shaheed gave us its not clear what the link is between halbech and al-samad in rome.im doing a check of halbech employees and ex-employees in Rome_

_> his info *does* also list the local al-samad cell leader_

_> a ‘jibril al-bara’, but…_

I leaned up from the stiff-backed wood deck chair, started typing.

_> >Sounds like there’s a snag._

_> you could say that_

_> a government sized one_

_> >Let’s just take it one step at a time, then. What’s the problem?_

_> theres a cia listening post in rome and its pretty well staffed_

_> theyre definitely running a search on you_

That would have been good to know in advance.

> _hmmm_

_> and al-samad, looks liek_

_> *like_

_> >What’s their chance of tracking us down?_

_> idk_

_> you COULD try to stay below the radar…but that doesn’t seem to be your strong suit_

As if it had been my fault. As _if_. As if any of it – never mind. She probably didn’t mean it like that.

>> _Any chance of keeipgn an eye on them or bugging the systems, tapping into their network_ , I wrote.

Mina thought about it.

_> it’s possible_

_> but you’d need to slip in there without being detected_

_> >so we’d have to be extra covert_

_> >when carrying out a covert op._

>> _they’ll make finding the al-samad cell even harder._

_> there may be another way to get information we need on al-samad and halbech. it looks like there’s an nsa echelon listening report in rome_

_> you might be able to access that and use their database to do our hunting for us. it looks like…_

_> its in a gelato shop :o _

_> >You’ve gotta be kidding me._

_> stranger things have happened_

My foot was fidgeting again.

>> _Let’s figure out the Al-Samad connection first. They’re a little more knee jerk_

> _i agree_

_> without shaheed to rein them in_

_> who knows what the individual cells will do while theyre resolving the power struggle_

_> we need to find jibril al-bara_

_> soon_

There it was. The familiar pressure of a deadline, weighing in. Now that I could handle.

 _> too bad you just got here, _she added a moment later, and I sat up.

>> _Why?_

_> intel suggests al-bara is hosting a fundraising banquet tonight at some chateau outside of la aquilla_

_> >Where is that? _I asked, googling it right afterwards when she didn’t say anything. Not but two hours by car. I could swing that. I got up, balancing the laptop in one arm. Looking outside today you could hardly believe half a world away blizzards were raging.

> _MIKE,_ Mina finally wrote.

_> BAD IDEA._

_> I REPEAT – BAD IDEA._

_> >It’s too nice today to sit around inside._

Typing with one hand was tricky, but doable. The laptop wobbled as I strode back inside. Two hours. I’d need a car. Or a bike. I hadn’t worked that out yet. Really made you miss having an agency at your back.

> _mike, you need prep time._

_> cover, you need intel, you need to learn the layout, i could go on_

_> >Fine. I’ll work on the way. There’s a bus. Saves on gas._

I sat the laptop down on the table, reflexively heading off to the bedroom to dig my coat out of my luggage. Halfway down the hallway, I remembered I didn’t need it. In fact, I didn’t need anything but my phone and my fake ids – real ones now, I suppose. Didn’t matter. I swung by the laptop one more time.

> _mike_ , the screen read.

_> you need a rifle too, its got a scope that transmits images back here so i can id people_

_> i dont suppose youre going to jog across town without any introductions or intel and convince the guy to give it to you?_

_> god, no, you would, wouldnt you_

_> thorton, please please PLEASE tell me you aren’t already gone_

I smiled. I’m not _that_ impulsive.

>> _Just point me in the right direction, Mina._

_> mike i swear i don’t know why im still helping you_

_> >ouch_, I wrote, quickly, not sure why it hurt so much. It wasn’t serious. She was probably just kidding or-

> _crap mike i didn’t mean it liek_

_> im sorry_

_> >no need to apopligize_

_> >*apologize_

_> >where is this rifle again?_

The screen sat like that for a moment. I glanced past it out the window, waiting for the flash of motion, the message that would mean I could finally get going.

> _you cant hear it but im sighing_

_> ill send you the address_

_> AND introductions. go get shot on your own time_

_> i desperately need a new job_

_> >Can’t say I recommend getting fired,_ I typed back, poking the keys with one hand, _but if you ever need a reference, I have several cover IDs who can vouch for you._

> _what a relief._

My PDA buzzed. Wherever this rifle was, I could probably walk.

>> _Heading out._

_> copy that_

_  
_

\------------------------

Thursday Evening, 23:43

Private Estate

L’Aquilla, Italy

\------------------------

“You in place?” Mina said over the earpiece.

“Yep,” I whispered back. Not that I needed to. But there was something about the dark mountains and the air. Far below, people milled through a garden, or chatted on stone terraces. A woman in a long red dress tripped when her heel got stuck in between two of the cobblestones. She pitched forward, reached out to clinging to the arm of champagne laden server. Her hasty attempt to avoid falling failing. He went backwards, the champagne tipping over and arching towards the small quartet behind him. Through the rifle scope, you could clearly see every horrified twitch of the violinist’s dripping eyelids. Despite it all, no sound escaped. The trees weren’t even rustling.

“Got a good view of where this thing is supposed to take place,” I reported quietly. “What now?”

“Al-bara’s our target,” she said, her voice startlingly loud against the nothingness in the background. “He’s supposed to be here already.”

The elaborate stone behemoth of a house spat two security guards in all black suits from a set of open latticed double doors. They made a beeline for the woman spluttering on the ground, one offering a hand, the other scanning the damage and the cowering server. Ten-to-one none of them were Al-Bara.

“Aim the scope at someone,” she reminded, “and I’ll run their picture through the database, see if we get a match.”

“We don’t know who Al-Bara’s meeting, so taking anyone out may have…” she added, but I stopped her.

“Repercussions, got it,” I said. “Transmitting now.”

\------------------------

00:52

Still at the Estate

\------------------------

 

“How about him?” I asked.

She sighed.

“Antonio Forenzo. Roman artist. Made a name for himself last year with a controversial exhibit in Paris. Some local-juvenile offenses, but otherwise he’s clean. He’s _also_ not our target.”

The beefy man leaning against the rough stone outer wall of the house shivered, rolled his sweater sleeves down, and continued ogling the backless dress of one Orsola de Luca (patron of the arts).

“What about him?” I asked, and swung the scope around to the lanky, nervous-looking guy watching Forenzo watch Orsola, round lips caught between a pout and a scowl. He rubbed his arms, and shifted a bit from foot to foot.

“Fausto Pace. An American novelist, he’s got a best-seller right now on corporate involvement in the Middle East. Again, not our target. And you know it.”

Mr. Pace fiddled with a silver cufflink, grabbed another champagne off the nearest moving platter, looked like he was gonna be brave enough to down it all, but hesitated at the last minute.

“Is it any good?” I asked.

“I’m waiting for the movie,” she said dryly.

Unluckily for Forenzo, Orsola de Luca chose that moment to become bored with Gorge Villalbos (Spanish celebrity talk show host). With a brief touch to his shoulder, she spun around and relocated herself indoors. Forenzo and Villalbos looked for a minute like they were going to follow her, when another figure appeared when Orsola had been standing. One minute nothing, the next, a squarish bulky man with black sunglasses and a very clearly displayed police baton was standing, arms crossed, where Orsola had been.

“Whoa,” said Mina.

“No kidding.” I blinked, and he was still there, Villalbos shrinking in front of him.

“Elmo Garibaldi,” she volunteered in a hush, like I was supposed to recognize that. Though it did sound familiar. “Private security, ex-forces. Not our man…but definitely a professional.”

Pace rolled the stem of his glass between his fingers, and wisely chose to flee to another part of the terrace.

“He planned and led the assault that took back that hijacked British jet last year,” she offered, even though I wasn’t watching him. What in the world did Pace think hiding behind a flower pot was going to do for him?

“Should I get you an autograph?” I asked her innocently, while Pace got a twig caught in a loosely curled tuft of deep brown hair.

“What? No,” she said, much too quickly. “No, I work for the infamous Mike Thorton now. Compared to you, he’s small time.”

An older, stooped over man in plain slacks and a button down hobbled into the scope in order to jab sharply at Pace. Pace nearly jumped out of his skin, grabbed his chest with one hand and threw up the other to deflect…well, at least he tried. The older man began laughing, his whole form shaking. Still, he wrapped an arm around Pace and steered him toward the terrace edge, where there were a couple of benches.

“Mohammed Hassan,” Mina cut in. “He’s a curator for one of the museums in town. His latest exhibit on the Crusades has drawn some fire but otherwise he’s clean. Mike, enough people watching. Al-bara is the priority.”

 

\------------------------

1:33

Worst Party Ever

\------------------------

Mina yawned. I should have brought my jacket. I could see my breath. At least it wasn’t windy.

I scanned the party again, for the nth time. Nothing new. Upstairs, someone threw open the doors of a stone balcony, stumbled out and collapsed, green-faced, against the sides. Behind him, a CNN broadcast blinked urgently. Something about market collapse? As good as the scope was, I couldn’t quite make out the scrolling lines that played out under the reporter’s head.

“Mike,” Mina admonished, “You have a TV back at the safehouse.”

I went back to scanning the party.

 

\------------------------

2:24

\------------------------

Another guest stumbled back inside. Only a few people were left, smoking on benches and talking in small huddles. I scanned the entire house again. Nothing unusual-

“Hang on, go back,” Mina commanded.

“Stop,” she said, when I reached a balcony on the third floor. The doors were open, light drifting from the inner room, but-

“There.”

A shadow appeared first, and then, a second later, a short man in a suit with a bushy black beard and slicked back black hair emerged, waving a cigarette and looking up at the moon.

“That’s Al-Bara, that’s him,” she said, tensely.

“Take him out or-”

“-hold on…”

He strode over to the balustrades, rested a hand on it, blowing cigarette smoke out into the night air.

“Lot of State Department and Interpol records…” Mina reported, sounding confused, “State Department says he’s dirty…Interpol says his finances are legitimate, though…and…”

A moment later, another man emerged from the room, waving a book around wildly through the air, gesturing angrily. Pace. _He_ was the meeting?

Mina kept silent, the sounds of frantically shuffling papers and erratic typing the only sign she was still there. Al-Bara grabbed the book from Pace’s hands, threw it back into the room.

“Mina.”

The typing intensified. Pace stormed back inside, and Al-Bara hovered, deciding.

“Mina, do I take him out?”

“None of these State Department records are sourced – I can’t tell where they came from, or when. Best I can tell…”

She paused, and Al-Bara rubbed his forehead, looking back presumably at Pace.

“Best I can tell, this intel was added to Al-Bara’s sheet a few months before you left for Saudi Arabia.”

“He’s a member of Al-Samad, right?” I asked her.

“I…” she said. “I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I’d say yes…but I might be wrong,” she admitted, while Al-Bara snuffed his cigarette. “You can take him out – or we can abort. It’s up to you.”

“Pace’s book – it was about corporate interference in the Middle East in the middle east, yeah?”

“What?”

“ _Mina_ ,” I said. Al-Bara was turning to head inside.

“Yes, but-”

“I’m aborting the mission. Something feels off.”

“All right,” she said.

Al-Bara reached the door, shook his head, and headed back inside.

 

\------------------------

Way Too Early in the Morning

Crappy, yet Surprisingly Affordable, Bus

Unknown, Italy

\------------------------

 _Scarlet_ , I wrote, as the bus hit another pothole and shook violently. The two tourists up front began whining again, while most everyone else shifted and tried to get back to sleep.

_Know this is a long shot, but you being a journalist and all…in the course of covering Saudi Arabia, did you ever cross paths with a Fausto Pace? He wrote a best seller about businesses screwing with the Middle East, apparently. No problem if not. Lemme know._

I didn’t have enough pieces. There was _something_ there. Shaheed listed Al-Bara, but if Al-Bara wasn’t Al-Samad, why? And why the secret meeting with Pace? And who had the kind of pull to mess with State Department records? Unless they weren’t tampered with. In which case I let an Al-Samad cell leader walk free at his own damn party.

I looked down at the PDA. Scarlet was in Taipei, right? She would be awake. What, eight hour time difference?

Trees and lights passed by outside. I waited, and waited. Mina was right, we’d needed more intel for this mission. I should have been ready. Coulda looked it up, coulda checked. Right? Maybe he wasn’t Al-Samad. Maybe he had simply stumbled upon Halbech. Maybe he knows something we don’t. I looked at the PDA again. One minute since sending.

I sank back, pulled up what dossiers we did have again. Jibril al-Bara, Saudi Arabian, a professor at Vittorio University, degree in Arab studies. Spends a lot of time in Rome at museums. Only last week wrote a passionate critique of the Crusades exhibit that the entire city seems obsessed with. Harsh grader but a good teacher. Practiced socialite. Married, with his kid off at Princeton. Not exactly Al-Samad material.

Four minutes since sending. The tourists finally stopped complaining in terribly accented Italian, switched to insults in English that somehow sounded even less intelligent.

Five minutes. I sat the PDA on the open seat next to me. I resolved not to look at it again.

Six minutes. My discipline needed work.

Saudi professor with no reasonable ties to Halbech, and potentially none to Al-Samad. Except Shaheed’s notes. Target, or participant? But why a target? He knows something about Halbech corporate involvement in the Middle East, obvious answer. But how would a middle age socialite stumble on that?

 _Still_ six minutes?

Pointless to speculate without more info. Mina was trying to find what she could. Scarlet would get back to me when she could. After all, it had only been…seven minutes. Not even enough time to finish writing a response. I tapped my fingers on the glass window, got an annoyed snort from the guy in front of me. I sighed, and he made a grumbling noise. Fine. I could do silence. Then my PDA buzzed loudly.

I didn’t recognize the email, which meant it wasn’t Scarlet or Mina. Which meant bad news.

I put it back on the seat for a second, suddenly aware of the quiet stream of whispered curses from the man in front of me.

“ _Quiet down,_ ” I whisper through the seats in Italian, ignoring the second noisy buzz of my PDA and the nervous impulse to start tapping my fingers again, “ _People are trying to sleep._ ”

It didn’t help. I thought he was going to turn around for a second, but he chose to fume instead, leaving me only with the PDA and not much else.

I let my hand hover over it for a second before I got fed up with myself and grabbed it.

_Had a heck of a time finding your new email! -LoneStar_

Said the first of two.

 _Oh by the way. What do you want me to call you? Is it Michael or Mike? Hear tell one of your covers was a doctor, I could call you Dr. Thorton but that would sound dumb. Sad but true. Albatross swears that’s not your real name – drives him crazy thinking any agent would use their real ID out in the field, his exact words were ‘that would be inane’ – but_ I _don’t care. Also there are different kinds of agents so… I can give you a code name, if you want._

I was smiling by the time I got to ‘Albatross’, because I had a pretty good idea who this was, and it probably wasn’t bad news, even if it meant there was something unsecure about my new email-

My PDA buzzed again in my hands, and a third message popped up.

_By the way…he’s doing much better now. I thought you might like to know that. Also, we picked up something that might help you out. How’s Rome?_

Okay, it wasn’t just my email. What kind of resources was G22 working with anyway?

 _Glad he’s okay,_ I wrote. _You can call me whatever you want. I’m not in Rome-_

-right now, at any rate-

_-so I would look in to where you’re getting your intel from. Which would be…?_

I sent it, then sat for a minute. Contemplated nudging the back of the seat with a foot. It wouldn’t be very professional. Or fair.

The PDA buzzed again.

_Not in Rome!? Really, Soulpatch (you said anything). A spy, lying - so cliché. If it makes you feel better I’ll pretend you’re in – wait no I won’t. Also READ THE ATTACHED. This Chet guy yeah?_

_Also I’m not really supposed to ask you this but…as a fellow agent and citizen of earth, I’d like to be kept in the loop re: this halbech situation okay? Great. Later._

Below her email, in blocky grey text, she’d included another thread.

  FW: FW: Leland file you wanted

> Pete,
> 
> Remember the days when we weren’t allowed to spy on our own citizens and only had jurisdiction over foreigners? I should thank those terrorists for making my job a lot more fun.
> 
> On that subject…attached is the Leland bit I was telling you about. Hope you’re not trying to work up a case on this guy…he has more friends in government than a Washington D.C. whore.
> 
> Now, don’t lecture me about the insecure nature of email and blah blah blah. We’re the CIA, we snoop on other people’s email – not the other way around.
> 
> -Chet

Below, she’d attached a file labeled LELAND.

A circular loading symbol appeared and started spinning lazily around and around. And it kept spinning. And it kept spinning. And then I looked at the download size.

This was going to take a while.

I sat the PDA back down, leaned back, and began mentally counting the minutes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i gave al-bara a geographically logical university at the time of writing because I couldn't figure out where he taught, but i was reviewing the newscasts, and they mention he works at one Vittorio University, so i fixed that.


	27. Chimera of Arezzo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which lunch is a difficult thing to pull off, isn't it?

Friday

 

_Here’s what we know. Maybe writing it all out will help, because there’s gotta be something I’m just not seeing._

_Al-Samad is planning something in Rome. And we have to figure out what. Jibril al-Bara is involved, somehow. His intentions are currently unknown. Possibly he is aware of Halbech influence and arms dealing. Scarlet doesn’t know anything about Fausto Pace. Or, to be more precise, all she said was “No”._

_G22’s file on Leland…complicates things. Most problematic – a guy called Conrad Marburg. Ex government type. Used to be Chief of Security for Halbech, worked right under Leland, left last year. According to Mina, he landed in Rome a few weeks ago. Even worse, he works for the VCI now. I still don’t understand the tie between the two. The VCI went after Surkov. Halbech_ slash _VCI or Halbech_ versus _VCI? It’s an open question. Regardless, nothing good’s going to come of having either of them in Rome.  
_

_And of course none of that is as strange as the email I got from al-Bara this morning. Claimed he used his ‘vast array of political and criminal connections’ to track me down, said he wasn’t intimidated by my ‘childish attempts at surveillance’, and then invited me out to lunch. It_ was _a Roman IP address, and it_ was _al-Bara’s email address…but something else is going on here. I wasn’t spotted. I_   wasn’t _. Yet…the email exists._

_I can’t imagine al-Bara knows anyone who knows who I am. I don’t care who his contacts are._

_Everything about this whole thing feels off-kilter. I don’t like it._

_I can’t not go, though. He has answers and I need answers._

_And lunch._

_I’ve got a half hour until then. Thirty minutes to figure all this out. I should probably get a nap. I can't remember if my thoughts on the bus were dreams or not.  
_

\------------------------ 

Friday, 3/7, 12:02,

Caffe Trionfo

Rome

\------------------------ 

“Anything?” Mina asked over the earpiece. A thin Italian waiter in black slacks and a rumpled white shirt headed back indoors with a tray balanced on one hand. He gracefully threaded his way through chairs and tables and various winter pale hands waving around wine glasses. The loud American couple at the farthest back table burst out laughing, dropped the glass back on to the table and started banging their fists on the wooden surface. The quiet Italian couple sent daggers through the air and then bent back over steaming plates of something with far too many leaves. A woman with big, round purple glasses paused outside the lattice that demarcated the outdoor seating area, and sent a sympathetic smile to the Italians.

I yawned, leaned back. Ran a finger idly around my own wine glass.

“Nope. No sign of al-Bara yet.”

“Maybe he stood you up,” she quipped.

“I’ve never been stood up in my life,” I protested. Maybe a touch too loud. Purple Glasses looked down at me sharply, and I waved my free hand at her.

“ _Someone_ has a high opinion of themselves.”

“I’m just statin’ the facts,” I told her, more quietly.

Purple Glasses resumed stalking down the street. Twenty minutes and still no al-Bara. I pulled out my PDA for a second, looked at the time. 12:02. Make that-

Wood scraped against cobble, and an older gentleman with a pinched face and sparse white hair lowered himself into the other seat. Black gloved hands pulled at the edge of his grey starched suit as he straightened himself out.

“Sorry, that seat’s-” I started.

“Switch off your transmitter,” he commanded, in a low, gravelly tone. "If you reach for your gun, one of my men will put a bullet in your skull.”

“Let me guess-” I said, scanning the area quickly now, and finding nothing but the laughing Americans and the Italians with their heads down and beyond them across the street in what _had_   been an empty alley, a – _shit –_ man in a suit and sunglasses, very obviously staring at me- “this was your table.”

The man reached inside his suit jacket.

“Don’t,” he said sharply, pulling out a strange metallic black pen, “make me repeat myself.”

A sudden electric shock arced through an eardrum. The sparking static jabbed straight through to my skull, my teeth, the hand not busy keeping me from hitting the table face-first shot up to tear the earpiece away, slam it on the table. My ear rang.

“Perhaps,” the man said over the fading buzz, “you thought you could enter Rome under the radar. You almost did, but you broadcast your location – eventually.”

“Guess I'll have to work on my timing,” I bluffed, resisted the urge to touch my ear. “I can be more subtle, if need be.”

He looked over my shoulder, nodded at someone. “That’s no longer necessary.”

“You’re right – it got you here, didn’t it?” I said, forced myself to relax. This was a public place. He wasn’t here to start anything. Just to talk. Who the hell was he? One of Al-Bara’s connections? He had to be Halbech.

“And now we’re having this conversation,” I continued. “I must be doing _something_ right to have you come visit me in person.”

“You aren’t here in an official capacity.” He looked back at me, eyes connecting, and he frowned. “You are operating under Alpha Protocol.”

“Interesting,” I said, slowly. “Considering the program’s secret, I would have expected you to say ‘traitor.’ Unless you have insider knowledge?”

He kept a remarkably straight face, but he also kept talking. “If you think you’re the first to be abandoned by your government, you would be wrong.

“You are Michael Thorton. Many of the files of your former Ops are buried. A field agent.” He looked at me down his nose. He was definitely Halbech. In fact…I think I might have finally lucked out.

“I’m a spy, actually.” I corrected him. “But you can’t expect me to put that in my file.”

“I’m guessing,” I added, “you’re here to confirm what you have on me. Anything else you need to check?”

He laid a hand on the table. “Reports place you as someone loyal to your country -  and who believes in carrying their missions through.”

“Is that so odd?”

“In today’s day and age, yes. But not to me.”

Across the street, his guy shifted slightly, brushed a hand over the place on his hip where I would have put a holster, if I was him. I took a deep breath. _My turn._

“So, you know a great deal about me – and I know who you are. _You_ ,” I said, mimicking his rumbling, “are Conrad Marburg. You’re Leland’s right hand man, his lackey, toadie, henchman. And you wear those gloves to keep the blood off your hands.”

When I mentioned the gloves, the hand on the table twitched, and I knew I was right. I grinned at him, and his eyebrows crept down a bit.

“I’ve read your dossier,” I explained. “You’ve lived a full life.”

“You, on the other hand,” he started, “have managed to enter Rome quietly. I didn’t know you were here until an hour ago. You’re skilled at keeping a low profile. No murders, no public announcement-”

He nodded, voice trailing off as he inspected the street. “Very impressive.”

“What happened to Al-Bara?”

“Dead, of course,” he continued, in the same far-off tone. “Once you’d ID’d him, well, his use to me was at an end. In less than a day’s time, you have already managed to cause me considerable inconvenience. Now-”

His attention snapped back to me. His voice was hard, and he made slow, deliberate eye contact with several points behind me, the kind of eye contact that made me regret mocking him. My neck was prickling with invisible gazes.

“Tell me what you’re doing here,” he said.

“I…was tracking down a lead. And it looks like I’ve found it.”

“I see…so you thought all you had to do was wait and we would speak. Interesting.”

“What I don’t understand, though, is why we’re talking at all. Unless keeping me alive is important for some reason?”

“I have orders,” he said simply. “And I am a cautious person.”

“So this is a social call? Warning me away? That’s polite of you.”

“I believe you have nowhere to go for help. In that situation, it is a rare man who goes to his enemy’s door. So, yes, this is a…”

He paused for a moment, ran his thoughts through drumming fingers. “A social call. A warning. You’ve proven yourself capable, but pursuing this course of action will not serve you any longer. Go underground. Hide. But stay out of our way.”

“Or else what?” I shot back.

“Or people you care about will start to die. We know you’ve been in contact with one of your fellow agents. That contact will die if you persist. And then we will kill you.”

“Those are your terms?” I repeated. “Allow you to carry out your mission, and I stay out of the way.”

“Yes,” he said, and nodded.

“You realize I would be betraying my country?”

“Yes, and that does not change my terms. I understand your feelings, and I…encourage you to set them aside.”

The Americans chose that moment to stop talking completely, and the sudden quiet was so unnerving, the Italians stopped mid-bite. I felt myself lowering my voice despite myself.

“So we’re done here. I leave Rome, leave you to your plan, and that’s it.”

“Yes,” he said, equally quiet. “What you do next is up to you, but there are only two immediate choices – leave, you live. Stay – you die.”

“You don’t seem like the corporate stooge type,” I told him, hoped he wouldn’t notice me withdrawing my hand from the table. “In fact, you seem like someone who doesn’t take orders at all, especially from someone like Leland.”

He didn’t notice. He seemed more preoccupied with the perceived insult, the lines in his face tightening.

“Are you questioning my loyalty?”

“I am,” I said, and my fingers found the edge of my phone. The guy in the alley didn’t move. “But not in the way you think.”

I popped the keyboard open silently, tried my best to remember how many button clicks it would take to get through the menu to the recording function. Marburg stared at me.

“I’ve read your dossier,” I continued. Four, or three left clicks? Four, I think. Four, if Marburg’s pen hadn’t fried my phone as well as my earpiece. “From where I’m standing, it doesn’t seem like Halbech’s any better than the governments that you’ve served with. How long will it be before they have new secrets, a new Chief of Security? Wait – they already do.”

His lips collapsed on top of one another, pressing firmly together, and I kept right on. So he _was_ Halbech.

“Do you seriously think,” I pressed, and watched his fingers twitch again. “they wouldn’t leave you out to dry if they had to?”

“You are ignorant,” he said sharply.  “Halbech is not the same hierarchy as your organization, and the term ‘loyalty’ is not used there lightly.”

His fingers flattened against the table, and he pushed himself standing, unfolding one vertebrae at a time. “Leave Rome. If we see each other again, it will be the last time.”

The moment he got around the street corner I spun backward, searching the back of the café and the sidewalk. Nothing, nothing, nothing but pedestrians weaving in and out and around one another. People with bags and dogs and children. No more guys in suits touching their ears. Which didn’t mean anything. His people could be the Americans, the Italians – hell, the woman with purple glasses had stared at me for a half-second too long.

I slid the phone an inch out from under the table, glanced down quickly. The red record symbol as blinking reassuringly on, then off, then on again, and I relaxed a hair. It wasn’t much, but it was something. More than I had a few minutes ago. More than nothing.

_“Sir?”_ someone said in Italian, and I looked up into the large, dark eyes of one very worried waiter. There were at least nine different places he could be hiding a concealed pistol in his slacks alone, fitted as they were. Not to mention however many of Marburg’s pens he could be carrying.

“No,” I told him, not really sure what he had been asking.

_“Of course,”_ he said. He hesitated, then snaked back off through the chairs and tables.

I hid the phone back in its pocket. I’d need more than that to go after Marburg.

But it was a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i mentioned i'd mention it in the notes if i ever did any serious edits to anything so round about yesterdayish the entirety of chp 15 was redone


	28. St. George and the Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~the one by raphael~~ fuck that noise im switchin it to the one by carpaccio, for reasons

_“I confess,”_ _Leland said, and his outline blurred. “you slipped into Rome almost without us noticing.”_

_I had._

_“You were even more difficult to track after that.”_

_Good._

_I leaned forward, but the table was much closer than I thought, and I ended up scraping my skin on the side of my elbow. He stared at it._

_“Between Halbech and the local authorities,” I said, the words too loose and liquid, “the locals were the tough ones.”_

_“No matter,” he said. “Mr. Marburg found you.”_

_Did he? I think the weather had been nice that day.  
_

_“That must have been a surprise, meeting up for lunch like that.”_

_A different sunny day, one dead American civilian, executed in broad daylight. Heard it made the news. Heard it still hadn’t stopped._

_“There wasn’t much time to eat, actually,” I said. “He was too busy talking, and I was too busy keeping my hands where he could see them.”_

_First report on a local newssite…I’d come this close to dropping my laptop in the full sink, standing in the dark with no one in my ear reminding me why I needed to keep it. I try, my fingers stuck on the sides because when I try to drop it, to let go, my fingertips are sticky with that familiar combination of sweat and blood, but I could still imagine it tumbling, landing, sparking, fizzing…_

_“Ah. So a normal business lunch, then,” he joked. I ran a finger over the scraped patch on the bottom of my arm._

_“I’d be curious to hear more. I can barely get three words out of the man.” His eyes flicked down briefly to my hand. “Your first impression of Mr. Marburg?”_

_“Feel free,” I offered, “to have him threaten you...whenever you get tired of listening to yourself.”_

_“What did you discuss?”  
_

_“Nothin’ important. Just you.”_

_“Marburg described you as a man of your word,’ he continued, frowning. My fingers curled tightly around my elbow. “‘Patriotic,’ I believe, also came into the conversation.”_

_Pa-tri-OT-tic. He let the word sound heavy, clicking it with his tongue against the roof of his mouth.  
_

_“But…” he continued, after a moment of looking at everything but my arm, “Mr. Marburg was not always the best judge of character.”_

_He sighed.  
_

_“Nor,” he said, and leaned slightly forward, as if he needed to make some big confession, “does he inspire much loyalty in employees…speaking of which…”_

_There was no bracing for it. Or, there would have been, with some clean air and some space and two goddamn shots to the arm ago. Now, though…_

_I rolled my shoulders back, tried my best to smile, and ended up with a flat line in the middle of my face._

_The televisions clicked back on._

 

* * *

_“Halbech is not the same hierarchy as your organization, and the term ‘loyalty’ is not used there lightly.”_

I rewound it again. _My_ organization. Good joke; wouldn’t have pegged Marburg for the funny type. Black ops in Kuwait, South Africa. Blew up an oil refinery in Moscow. He and Darcy probably got along.

“- _and the term ‘loyalty’ is not used there lightly.”_

I leaned back into the couch and rewound it again. He spat the word loyalty out like it was a particularly violent curse word. You know, that’s what really bothered me about him – he sounded like…I don’t know. Some kind of evil Winnie the Pooh.

I skipped back several seconds, tossed the phone up in the air.

_“Do you seriously think they wouldn’t leave you out to dry if they had to?”_

_“You are ignorant. Halbech is not the same hierarchy as your organization-”_

The phone slipped past my fingers, popping apart on the ground as the back cover and battery went skidding across the wood floor, the main part bumping into my foot.

_Evidence of the program’s existence must be eliminated._ Eliminated. Gone. Dead, estranged and executed. That’s what Parker had said, but Marburg survived Halbech. Maybe he was right. Maybe they would stand by him when shit went down.

And maybe I’d wake up tomorrow back in the US of A with a severance package and a National Security Medal.

I let the pieces of my phone sit on the ground for a few moments before I got up and retrieved them, snapped everything back together. Thankfully, the screen wasn’t cracked. Even better, it started vibrating wildly a moment after I turned it on.

“Mike, we may have a problem,” Mina said, skipping the ‘hello, how’d the meeting go’ completely. “The VCI employee I mentioned before, Madison?”

“Who?” I asked, but she kept going.

“I think she’s going to act.”

“What do you mean?” I said, calmly, deliberately. “Now?”

“She’s calling the operator – and asking for you by name,” she told me, voice dropping low and dangerous, she sounded, for maybe the first time, like she'd lost her center.

“She can’t be working for Marburg,” I reassured her. Marburg wanted me gone, he’d made his point quite clear, and sending someone else, right now? That wouldn’t do him much good. Unless…

“Unless this is a trap,” I thought out loud, and I could feel Mina tense up over the phone. She sucked in some breath through her teeth.  Conspicuously absent was the sound of her typing, or scratching out notes, or doing anything but starting to panic. I could see why. VCI wanted me out of the city, out of their hair, then this would be a good way to do it. With the CIA and who knows what else running active traces, and the NSA lurking around, this could get bad.

And now I was doing it. Panicking wasn’t going to help.

“Who is she calling?” I asked, hoping for her usual overabundance of analytics.

“The city directory…and maybe the police next. If she does-”

“Can you intercept the call? Redirect it?”

“What? Why?”

I paused, pulled the phone away from my ear for a moment. The image of Purple Sunglasses was back in my head. _Evidence of the program’s existence must be eliminated. Stay out of our way, or people you care about will start to die._

“If she’s an agent,” I started. “we’ll know soon enough.”

Mina didn’t say anything. I had to check the screen to see if she was still there.

“Mina?”

My free hand tapped softly against my thigh, counting down seconds until we had an even bigger mess on our hands. _1 – police start chasing me. 2 – spies get involved. 3 – people start to die, and Halbech goes home happy._

“Mina, do it,” I ordered, and crossed my fingers. “Now.”

“Okay…” she said quietly, not sounding the least bit confident, but at least she was responding. “Let me patch it through.”

 

* * *

 

_The screens clicked with a digital buzz. I didn’t have to turn to know who it was.  
_

_“This woman entered the picture not long after your meeting with Marburg.”_

_I turned, slightly, just a glance over my shoulder, and it was her. Sweeping blonde hair held back by her blue and white polka dot headband. In the picture she was smiling, looking off camera somewhere, thin eyebrows just starting to crease._

_“She was in our office in Rome.”_

_It could have been taken yesterday. Who was she looking at, in that picture? Her jacket, pale salmon color. Didn’t look good with red. I knew the risks. Had she?_

_“Madison, I believe?”_

_“Yes,” I answered._

_He offered half a smile. Condescending, smirking, I’d take Halbech from him. I’d take everything from him. Killing him was easy, I was two feet away and bone fragments from a broken nose can kill, if you do it right and I would, I would, I would…_

_I would wait. I would wait. I would wait, for G22. For the mission._

 

* * *

 

The voice on the phone was light, insistent, and most worryingly, determined.

“Operator?” she asked again, the insistence starting to give way to alarm as no one answered her.

She could be anyone. VCI plant choosing every variation in pitch with calculated precision. VCI employee who got her hands on my name…how? In fact, all we really knew about her was that she worked with the VCI.

The embassy falling apart around me and I almost snapped the phone shut.

_Mission first._ “Miss Saint James?”

“H-hello?” The sudden response seemed to completely dissolve, for a moment, her purpose and her footing. “Yes – is this the operator?”

“Operative, actually,” my mouth said, while my mind tried not to think about the VCI and the embassy, for the hundredth time this month.

“I’m sorry?”

I caught myself before the words _like hell you are_ got free.

“Never mind.” Mission first. “Miss Saint James, you were trying to reach a Michael Thorton? You’re talking to him.”

“Oh!” she said, and while the alarm didn’t dissipate from her voice, the relief and the surprise covered it up.

“Thank god, Mr. Thorton, please-” she continued, words bumping up against one another as she rushed to get them out- “you have to listen to me.”

“Already am,” I told her, cautiously, “but go ahead.”

She gathered her breath up, paused, and let herself return to determined insistence. “I have reason to believe your life is in danger.”

I waited. Mina waited. But Saint James didn’t say anything else.

I waited some more, the silence on the line more than a little confusing.

Was…was that it?

“I know it sounds crazy, but-” she helpfully added.

“You don’t say.”

“I don’t want to discuss the details over the phone – this line may be tapped...”

“She’s a sharp one,” Mina muttered under Saint James’ worried declarations.

“…but it’s important that I speak to you immediately. Is there someplace we can meet?”

Was there? VCI plant? But why? Draw me out, obvious answer, but…

Something wasn’t right. A sickeningly familiar feeling of something not being right, of missing something. I looked around the clean, sunlit room, across the wooden table and out the windows. I only half-expected the find the roof patio empty. It was, though, and that felt wrong too.

“Of course,” I said, visually scanning the interior of the safehouse without moving. “I’ll send you the address of a local restaurant.”

“All right. I still have to hail a cab-” she explained.

“I’ll have one sent to your cross streets.”

I was just jumpy because of Marburg. And because I hadn’t really, not really, gotten settled, checked out the neighborhood fully. That’s what this was. Not a lot of good news lately. That large blue vase, the fern with the big round leaves next to the door, that hadn't been there when I walked back in this morning. Or had it? The movement was a just a bird, about to sit on the patio ledge and then deciding better. Right? I would have seen something else.

“Oh…” Saint James said again, managing to hit four different separate notes in one word. “Okay.”

This would be fine. Spiraling wasn’t going to help anyone.

“I’ll see you soon, Miss Saint James.” And Mina, perfect timing, disconnected her the moment I finished the sentence.

“Can you find where Saint James-”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m heading out,” I reported.

This would be fine. At least, it couldn’t go any worse than lunch with Marburg.

 

* * *

 

“Are you _sure_?” I asked Mina. It’d taken me all of twelve hurried minutes to get my earpiece functioning, another twelve to get from the safehouse to a good observation point, and now I was in the unfortunate position of being late. Across the wide street, Miss Saint James paced back and forth through in front of the restaurant’s ivy laden windows. She looked back and forth, stopping every now and again to smooth her blue and salmon floral patterned skirt, and reset the blue and white polka dot headband she wore. She’d tried standing in place, and that had quickly given way to nervous feet tapping. I thought she might break a heel off. Then she’d tried going inside. And then back out. Her eyes never settled on the same person twice, which either meant she had absolutely no backup, or she had really, really good backup, the kind you would never look at if you suspected someone else – chiefly me – was scoping you out.

On the bright side, since she hadn’t been focusing on any particular one of the locals enjoying the warm weather, she hadn’t seen me leaning against the building across the street.

I flipped the map I had gotten from the tourist information station on the sidewalk, and watched her complete another loop on the sidewalk.

“I’m sure it was her.” Mina continued her whirlwind update on the Saint James situation. “She was doing a search for your profile. Although they got the height wrong.”

“I’m taller in person,” I said. My hasty patch job on the earpiece got it working, but hadn’t gotten it back to 100%. With every S noise, static electricity went through my eardrums. Half the reason I’d gotten the map was to keep my hands from touching the damn thing reflexively. No need to give myself away to whoever Saint James had on hand.

“It looks like she isn’t doing it on company time. I have the workstation called up…”

Saint James looked up at the sky. She didn’t find anything, and went back to skimming the crowd. I ducked behind the map.

“It’s using the workstation Parker used while undercover as a Halbech contractor,” Mina announced slowly.

I couldn’t have been hearing her correctly, not through the s noises and the wincing.

“What?”

“The ID badge used to access the office…it’s her.”

_Halbech_. Marburg and the VCI, and now Saint James and Halbech, and Alpha Protocol connections, too. I stayed behind the paper, began mentally reviewing the escape routes, one down the lane I was on, two down the main street beside me. Public buses, if I could get to them without getting spotted. The VCI might not want me dead but Alpha Protocol most certainly did.

“What’s her role at the company?” I asked, watching people move along the sidewalks over the top of the map.

“A full background check may take some time – but skimming from her dossier, she looks like a new employee.”

A new employee. A plant? She tripped, and it distracted me for the one second someone would have needed to get a knife free, or to shift from one doorway to another. None of the people on the streets seemed to notice or care that she’d fallen.

“If she’s tied to Marburg…”

“Recognize her?” Mina asked, as if somehow, in my extensive time with Halbech or during my pleasant, welcoming time spent with the VCI, I would have come across her.

And if she’d ever been tailing me, she’d stayed hidden.

“No. I think I’d remember.”

Saint James brushed off her knees, gave up walking in exchange for a spot against the restaurant’s front. No eye contact with anyone. No earpiece, no cell phone. She was wearing a short, red-orange business blazer. Could have a gun there.

The VCI wanted me gone. Halbech and Alpha Protocol wanted me dead. Saint James was, possibly, a part of both clubs. But…if Alpha Protocol knew where I was, knew I was here, in Rome, knew where the safehouses were, why not send someone there? This setup was an unnecessary risk. Which left the VCI.

“But why is she doing a search now?” I wondered out loud. “The VCI already found me.”

Mina didn’t have an answer. I didn’t either. Saint James closed her eyes. Looked like she was enjoying the sun.

“What did you think?” I asked.

“What do _you_ think?”

“I asked first.”

“I think I beginning to trust your instincts.”

“That’s funny,” I started, as across the street, Saint James began tapping her fingers against the wall of the restaurant. “I thought we had more of a ‘you doubt me and I do it anyway’ kind of relationship.”

“I said I trusted your instincts, Mike, not your impulses.”

“Good to know,” I said, refolding the map up quickly at first, then giving up, just creasing it at random because Saint James was walking away now, bringing each high heel down with a sharp, forceful movement. She didn’t look back either. The crowds on the sidewalk big enough to get lost in, probably not as bad as peak tourist season but the break in winter coolness had gotten enough people out. If she wanted to get gone, she’d be gone in seconds. If she was good. If she was an agent. I weaved my way through a group of chatting students with backpacks (big and bulky enough to conceal explosives), teetered on the curb for a second as a city bus barreled by and cut off my sightlines, but when it was gone, she was still there on the other side, along with whatever snipers and lookouts and tech specialists she’d gotten to accompany her.

Impulse said go. Instinct said nothing. And then, a twinge of something deep, something like embarrassment. This, this, after everything, this was the simplest decisions in the world. Was I really going to stop chasing them now, just because…what? She turned, threaded through two stout, short bollards and walked into the shadows of a small pedestrian street. I hit the cobble, waved off the angry blaring horn of the car I’d cut off, and I felt the familiar hit of adrenaline. If I’d known where her backup was, I would have flipped them off. Instead, I nearly got hit by a moped, tripped over the curb on the other side of the street, and hightailed it to Saint James’ lane. That would have to do.

 

* * *

 

_“I always wondered…did you regret getting her into this?”_

_“It wasn’t my choice.” The mission. The plan._

_“Oh, Mike, Mike, Mike,” he said with a trace of laughter as he settled back into his chair. “In the end, it was."_

 

* * *

 

She knew who I was. No need to introduce myself in Italian, other than to see if she understood it.

_“Come stai?”_ I asked.

She whirled around.

I ducked a hanging planter, and rested my shoulder against one of the creme colored buildings that framed either side of the lane.

_“Non mi posso lamentare,”_   I prompted, gestured at myself. _“E tu?”_

Her one hand went for her hair band, the other for her skirt, and then she surprised me. She caught herself, wiggled her fingers mid air and she set her face. Squared her shoulders. Reset herself. Then she smiled pleasantly.

“Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Thorton,” she said, and extended a hand.

Uneven nails, but each carefully covered in shiny pale blue. No wrinkles, no callouses on her fingertips, no burn marks, no cuts. Handler, maybe? Analyst? I didn’t take it.

“Let’s discuss what you told me over the phone.”

“I know it sounds crazy – where to begin…”

She was actually just going to tell me. No games. No scanning me for weapons, no looking around to see if _I_ had people. No tests. Her eyes not focused on much as she sank into deep thought. Independent agent? Someone with a grudge?

“Well, I-”

She stopped speaking when I straightened up, wrapped an arm around her shoulder. From there, if need be, one easy motion and she'd be in a chokehold, between me and her snipers. That she didn’t react with anything but a confused look…

I walked her forward, past the small artsy openings into shops and small courtyards and further down the lane, tried to split my time between checking her reaction and scanning the rooftops. And she just rolled with it, like she wasn’t in any trouble at all. Like this was normal.

Mina trusted my instinct. And now that I was off the street, now that I had relative control of this situation, now that things were quiet enough to listen, instinct was talking. And it wasn’t saying independent agent, or Halbech, or spy.

_Civilian_.

Problem was, Mina trusted my instinct, but after Surkov…

“Start at the beginning, and don’t edit yourself,” I instructed her, quietly, softly, I let the words blend in with the chatter that echoed even in the sparsely attended lane. “Just tell it.”

“I work for the Veteran Combat Initiative – VCI.” She began rattling facts off with the same forceful purpose as she’d initially had on the phone. “They’re a global military contractor. My boss…Mr. Marburg…I think he’s involved in something illegal.”

My fingers tightened on her shoulder, and I had to disguise it as a reassuring pat.

“So…” she continued, “I checked it out, and your name came up several times in our database.”

“And you,” I said, smiling and pulling her tight. There was a someone standing on one of those roofs. Roman sunbather or foreign spy? “just happened to come across this information.”

“Yes…Mr. Thorton, I don’t think he meant for me to see it, but in my position…”

“What makes you think he intends to kill _me_?”

“Termination contracts, even one for a man named Al-Bara, a professor here in Italy. It was…cross-linked to several contracts within the VCI.”

“So he just left this out accidentally for you to find?” I kept the smile on, had to talk through closed teeth. So they did want me dead. Dead-ish. Fun. Roof guy stretched lazily. Saint James pulled my arm off, made an attempt to push me away that earned her about two inches of free space.

“Mr. Thorton, I don’t know what you’re implying, but I came here to help you.”

“We’ll see. Where is this information, anyway? _If_ you’re telling the truth, then it’s evidence.”

“I don’t have it on me.”

_What a surprise_.

Then again, if she was a civilian, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?

I let her go, and kept walking on. The hesitant first couple of clicking noises made by heels on cobble didn’t regularize, like I’d thought they might, but they did continue irrhythmically, click-click-click click click-click.

“Mr. Thorton,” she said, behind me and trying to keep up. I kept a pace ahead. “I’m not sure what to do next.”

Click click. “Go to the authorities?”

Click click. “Is there someone I should notify?”

My own footsteps were perfect-score-in-stealth-orientation silent. “Or…?” she asked.

_Instinct._

_Impulse._

Mina didn’t say anything.

Fuck it.

I stopped short, her heels clattering to a halt.

“Miss Saint James, I shouldn’t have accepted your call. It’s possible Marburg is watching you, along with other employees.”

Her eyes widened slightly, but her breathing stayed constant. Interesting.

“Then what do I do?” she asked, and I was committed now, so…

“I believe your boss is involved in illegal weapons trafficking. And I’m concerned with what he intends to do with those weapons, especially-” I focused on the things you really can’t control when getting shocking news for the first time. Where her eyes would go. If she could keep up that even breathing. If she finally pulled a knife on me because the VCI now knew exactly how much I knew- “especially after that plane was struck down in the Middle East.”

“Wh-” She struggled with the word, lips making the shapes of various letters, but no noise. Probably had something to do with the lack of air moving from her lungs. Her hands flexed in mid-air, and her eyes darted across my face, reading, her head tilting and shaking at the same time.

“What?” she finally said.

I nodded.

“Oh my god. I…” she said, hands curling over themselves. “I didn’t realize-”

“Miss Saint James,” I interrupted, “you’ve only been employed by the VCI for a short time – and as Marburg’s assistant. That’s an important position, especially for a man of his influence.”

I wrapped my arm back around her shoulder, noticed she was trembling. And I had an idea. If, on the odd wild impossible chance she was just someone caught in the crossfire, this, figuring all this out all at once after the international hell of the past couple of months, finding out your boss killed a guy and was trying to kill another one, beginning to suspect that you might be in pretty deep trouble as well? For most people, that counted as a Bad Situation. She was feeling worry, probably fear. Anger.

We could use that.

According to the friendly tourist map – much more useful than any schematic I’d even been forced to decipher – we were only a few minute’s walk from some pretty big name tourist locations – chiefly, the Trevi Fountain. Also en-route – a McDonalds, praise be to rampant globalism. One or the other would cheer her up, make things seem not so bad, or at least, manageable. That is, make the situation seem manageable - as long as she helped us.

“I was abroad studying art history…” she said, as I got us walking. Her heels didn’t sound as chipper now. They scuffed a bit on the cobbles, and I gave her shoulder another pat.

“But when it comes to paying the bills, I thought I would apply for an administrative assistant position. The language skills helped, VCI does a lot of work with foreign governments.”

Did she know about the embassy? No, if Saint James had found out about their endeavors in Russia, she’d be dead.

The embassy. My daily reminder _not_ to take strangers at face value.

I smiled at the stranger I was currently taking at face value. “My point is, what you’ve discovered is sensitive information – this could prove dangerous for you,” I said.

“I know,” she said, and the minute shaking in her shoulders seemed to ease.

We walked out of the lane, across what hardly counted as a broader street. Back into the sunshine for a few feet, before I addressed the problem at hand.

“I need those files. Are they in the VCI branch office?”

“I don’t know what you’re looking for…but the VCI office in Rome isn’t Marburg’s personal office. He does most of his work off-site, or when he travels.”

“But he’s here now,” I said, verbally guiding her back on topic. “So, where would he store the information while in Rome?”

“He…has a villa. I’ve been there several times…if the files exist, I’m guessing they’d be there.”

“Along with Marburg.”

“Yes,” she said, hesitantly.

We finally strolled into a small plaza containing the white stone ledges and heroically posed statues of the Trevi Fountain. It seemed a hell of a lot smaller than it did in the pictures. Hemmed in by multistory buildings and an intrepid sunglasses vendor. People in trendy winter coats ignored it. A couple dangled their entwined hands over the curled railing separating the walking path from the inset viewing area.

I didn’t need to steer her over to the fountain’s lip. She did it herself, dipping a finger in the water and studiously avoiding glancing back at me. The reflection of her eyes in the water, ripples warping and stretching and turning her dark green irises blue, made her look sad.

She gave the water another swirl, and I turned around to survey the crowd. No familiar faces, which meant nothing. The sunglasses vendor was trying to hawk brown and grey and purple sunglasses. The locals – at least, I assumed they were locals - kept away from him. They stayed near the buildings, always miraculously avoiding collisions with camera wielding or child-toting tourists. I kept an eye on the cameras. Regretted not buying sunglasses of my own. Easy way to disappear, provided you didn’t wear the same ones everywhere. No one bought any purple ones from the guy determined to make sure everyone who walked by heard the evils of UV rays.

Not a bad rant. Kind of thing you could use to really sell a cover ID. I used to know this guy who had a book of them. Wonder what he’d make of the Dolce and Gabbana conspiracy to make sure the poor and downtrodden went blind from sun overexposure?

Saint James splashes the water against her palm.

Were you allowed to throw coins in the fountain? I had Euros. Switched them out, at a tragic exchange rate, as part of the get out of Russia plan. It was just bad luck, or maybe bad choice of pants, that the first thing I fished out of my packet was a 50 kopek piece.

“Madison.” I finally said with deliberate softness, and she craned her neck up at me. “Give me the address. Can you get me in?”

“What?” She stopped patting the water, eyebrows going high.

“Passcodes? Details on the security system? Anything would be helpful.”

“I-” she said, “I can give you the address, but that other information…”

“Trust me.” I focused on her, made sure to smile, and not just with my mouth, but my eyes. Earnest. Honest. Things civilians, or at least agents pretending to be civilians, like. “If you can get me into the mansion, I’ll get the information, and then your boss goes away for good.”

“Mr. Thorton… Marburg is…”

She paused, apparently distracted by the flash of metallic light given off by the coin balanced on my thumb.

“Is…?”

“I’ve never seen him angry. But everything about him – he’s a dangerous man to cross.”

“I’ll…” I started. And the funny thing was, I didn’t have a handy platitude ready. Marburg was dangerous. The VCI more so.

And not just for me. Whether or not she understood it, Saint James was in as much trouble as me. Except with half the skills and none of the emergency contacts.

I held the coin in my hand, sun catching in the scratches across the numbers 50. There were vines on kopeks. Or at least this one. I didn’t spend a lot of time studying kopek coins.

This side would be heads, then. The other side, tails.

I flicked it into the air, almost lost it against the sky, but it came down right where I’d sent it up, flat in my palm. Without looking, I flipped I over onto the top of my other hand.

The 50 shone again.

“I’ll protect you,” I said. And that was decided.

I don’t think she entirely got it, because she wore this confused half-smile, and she couldn’t stop looking back and forth between the coin on my hand and me.

“Madison,” I attempted, for the second time, “You did the right thing warning me, and I appreciate it. I probably shouldn’t have accepted your call, I think that may make things worse for you.”

“For _me_? I think I was a little more worried about _you_.”

“And I appreciate it. I’ll do whatever I can to protect you.”

She straightened up now, smoothing her skirt with one hand, the other resting lightly on the lip of the fountain. A little backward glance towards the lane we’d come from. Shifting her weight onto the balls of her feet. Ready to run. _Shit_.

“You need to look out for _yourself_ first. Mike…” she continued, and if she wasn’t about to sign her own death warrant by running off, I might have laughed. No Mr. Thorton. Making an effort to talk her way out first, manipulate. Create a rapport. “Marburg is going to try and _kill_ you. What are you going to _do?_ ”

“Miss Saint James - you’ve gotten into more trouble than you know by speaking with me, and that’s _my_ fault. However, you know Marburg, and you know what you know makes you a liability.”

She shifted one foot backwards slightly. I wrapped my fist around the coin – heads up, I had to help her.

“I can protect you. I have a location in Rome that Marburg doesn’t know about, and you can stay there.”

“But-” I added, holding up a finger- “in return, I need whatever information you can provide to take him down.”

“But…” she protested, voice cracking a little.

“Let me do my job. If I can expose him, you’re safe. And-”

And here, a little lie was necessary. But only a little one.

“-if he gets by me, trust me. No one else can protect you.”

Maybe it was the flower print on her skirt that reminded me of something wilting. Or maybe it was the few drops of water trickling off her fingers. Her shoulders curled in.

“A-all right,” she said.

I was about to relax when she bolted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> days 116-124


	29. Supper at Emmaus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might change this chp title later

Hard truth – fleeing in heels is a tricky business. And I doubt Saint James had a good mental map of our surroundings. Of course, none of that mattered, because the moment she opened her mouth she had the advantage.

 _“Polizia!”_ she screamed. All of a sudden every eye was on either her, a short slender white woman hopping backwards up the stairs with hands on her skirt and her hair bow, or me, the tall black guy who’d been strong-arming her down an alley a minute ago.

 _Now_ everyone had cell phones.

Mina hissed annoyance over the earpiece, and the clock was on.

Double down, distract, and get the fuck out of there.

 _“Maledetto puttana!”_ I cursed as loudly and as frantically as I could manage at her stumbling figure. “ _Tu hai scopata mio- tu-”_

I jabbed a finger at the nearest tourist digging a phone free. _“ Lei ha- lei- Per favore, sì, chiamate la polizia.”_

Some of the comforting hands patting her shoulders turned into hesitantly restricting arms. She broke through them and darted down the lane.

I had one second, one wonderful second, to get clear of the fountain’s basin and jump the rail before everyone made up their minds whose side they were on. An angry local grabbed at my shirt. A stocky tourist’s altruistic left hook came from out of nowhere. I pivoted, my shirt making a little tearing noise, the punch grazing past my cheek and landing solidly against the shoulder of Grab Hands. No time to enjoy it; the spin brought me face to face with a raised camera phone.

The tourist behind it gave a sheepish grin. “Gotta keep up that follower count?” she said.

I snatched it, jumped one last attempt to trip me, and hit the nearest lane.

A lane that ran adjacent to Saint James’ escape route. Mental map. Useful, that.

“Michael,” Mina said, “if _I_ could intercept that call, from here, the VCI probably-”

“-will have figured it out too. I know.”

The seconds ticked away.

 

* * *

 

The Via del Corso was far from empty. Swaths of brightly-dressed people meandered up and down both sides. Light traffic motored by. A couple of people on scooters invoked angry curses from slow moving drivers. But the street _was_ empty of the one person I needed to find, one frightened civilian, in all likelihood running for home. A home that had to be filled to the brim with VCI contractors, or given how they handled the embassy, C4.

_Where was she?_

Four people sitting under an umbrella, laughing around the outdoor table of a café. Short woman with wild bleached hair, blue floral skirt, not Saint James. Further down a bus rumbling along to a stop. Man in dark brown suit with worn suitcase, and a limping woman in a colorful hijab boarding. Not Saint James, not Saint James. Jogger with broad shoulders slamming into my side in a rush, glaring at me and shouting in a Milanese accent. Not Saint James. He waved a hand in front of my face, no callouses no ceases – probably not VCI either. Blond guy sauntering up the street with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, giving me a half-smile and a raised eyebrow the moment his grey-blue eyes met mine, and I had to remind myself not to go for the gun I hadn’t brought. _Definitely_ not Saint James.

Okay. I’m frightened. I’m being, or at least I think I’m being, hunted down by a guy important enough to have an assassination contract. I’m shaken, but I’m also smart. I have a good center. I can’t go back to the fountain, and the only other decent escape routes are on this street. But I’m not here.

I’m not here…yet.

I detached from the corner of the building, bumped through the crowd. Across the opening of the next lane, the lane she had taken, people walked with an extra infusion of energy. One tourist slid his eyes sideways, focused on something behind the corner for a moment, then kept walking.

I checked where the flat grey tiles of the sidewalk collided with the scuffed cobbles of the lane. A shadow shook on the ground, bits of it dipping into the gaps between stone.

I backed away slowly.

She was smart enough, or maybe paranoid enough, to disassemble her phone. Her nail got caught twice in the seam between the back cover of what looked like a blackberry, and the interior of the phone. The third time, she snapped it open and dug the SIM card out. She held the screen up, angled it beside the corner, winced when a flash of light caught her full across the face. I think she was trying to get a visual of the street without having to poke her head out. Not a bad idea. Though, judging by how deeply she was rubbing her eyes, she’d become quite acquainted with the drawbacks.

“Try _not_ to run her off this time,” Mina advised dryly.

I made sure my hands were well above my head before I walked up behind her.

“Miss Saint James, I’m not here to kidnap you,” I said. She froze, didn’t turn, but held up her phone slowly.

I smiled at my reflection and hoisted my hands up just a little higher.

“I intercepted your call-”

 _“I?”_ Mina scoffed, while I continued to seem less threatening by _not_ revealing there were _multiple_ people monitoring Saint James.

“-which means your boss probably did too. If you wanna go home, that’s fine-” I said, over Mina’s snort- “but let me come with you.”

That stopped Mina laughing in a hurry.

“What?” Saint James asked, turning around halfway.

“I got you into this, and I promised I’d protect you. The VCI will be all over your place. I can help.”

“I’ll go to the authorities.”

“You could…” I allowed. “And if you’re lucky, you’ll lose your job. If you’re right, you’ll vanish. Let me come with you.”

She dropped her hands, and returned her gaze to the traffic running along the street. She kept her grip on her phone, even while the rest of her was unstringing.

“ _Please_ ,” I added.

A horn sounded aggressively around the corner. Laughter trickling over the noise of engines. The shadows, cool and then her voice, a whisper now.

“Okay,” she said.

 

* * *

 

Saint James rested her head on the inside of the taxi’s glass window, and stared at the sky.

“You pushed her too hard,” Mina criticized, taking unfair advantage of my inability to verbally fight back. “You frightened her. You didn’t give her control of the situation.”

We had a good hour or two of sunlight left. Not that people would head inside after sundown, not unless it got much colder. The presence of people would mean good cover for us, but good cover for the VCI too.

“How are you liking Rome, by the way?” Mina asked, when what she meant was, _I think you’re off your game now that you’ve moved to a new city, and I expect you to get back on point._

My unfolded map of Rome lay on the seat, between me and Saint James. I had escape routes from her house memorized. I was plenty prepared.

“I’m checking everything I can for some signs of VCI activity. So far, nothing.”

I even had a plan. Point out the VCI, remind Saint James – _gently_ remind her – of the trouble she was in. Offer an easy solution and safe harbor. It should have worked the first time. I might have been pushing too hard. I maybe might have been pushing too hard. I should know better than that.

“I hope – _shit_ ,” Mina cursed, and this got me sitting upright.

“Mike, I have to go,” she said, and the feedback and electric static in earpiece stopped.

 _That_ couldn’t be good. Flying blind wouldn’t turn out for well for us, either. I leaned up, and directed the driver to park a good two minutes south of where we’d been heading. Saint James finally unstuck herself from the window.

“Mr. Thorton, I thought-”

“Change of plans,” I said calmly. “We just lost tactical support.”

“Tactical support? What’s going on?”

“Miss Saint James, we have reason to believe your boss and certain sections of the VCI are involved in a lot more than weapons trafficking…” I let my voice trail off, so she would ask the next obvious question.

“Like what?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

As I’d expected, her eyes widened.

“Are you with the police, Mr. Thorton? Are you-”

“Mike or Michael is fine. And all I can say is we’ll both be in a lot of trouble if you get spotted. So-” I said, and got a grip on the door handle. “Follow me, and keep your head down.”

The street looked clear. Saint James, taking my advice a touch too literally, dashed from one car to the next, squashing her head down below the door, and then peeking over the side to check the opposite side of the street. It you took away the tiny cars and mopeds and bikes packed in on either side, the street was all of two meters wide. Maybe. You could keep an eye on it while walking normally. The trouble wasn’t even with the damn street. The real danger lay in the maze of four and five story buildings around us, each one covered in open shutters and open windows, windows blocked by overgrown trees or gently waiving curtains or any number of things that someone could stand behind and be completely out of sight. My skin was crawling. If it gave her any comfort to hop from one car to another, then that at least left one of us feeling better.

I walked a few feet behind her, hands in my pockets. The street itself looked clear. So. They were already in her apartment, then. Or they wired a car to blow. Or they were going to disguise it as a mugging. I had several coins, a malfunctioning earpiece, a map and a knife. And no Mina. And no sign of the VCI.

Ahead, Saint James came to a stop and knelt down beside the wheel well of a blue Fiat.

“That’s my apartment,” she whispered, and pointed around the car, across the street.

“That?” I said, without meaning to. I mean, I hadn’t known Saint James for much more than twenty minutes, but the building across the street – tall, concrete, angular – didn’t seem to fit. At some point, someone had tried to paint it pale yellow, tried to make it fit in with its surroundings by adding some vines at the base of the stucco wall blocking the property from the street. It hadn’t worked. The paint flaked in patches. Even the windows were depressing. Looked like stickers someone had affixed along a harsh grid. Even in Italy’s softening afternoon light, it managed to loom over the street ominously.

“It’s…nicer on the inside.”

“Doesn’t look like there’s any VCI around.”

“That’s good, right?” she asked hopefully, looking up.

“Not really, Miss Saint James,” I told her. _Although they’d have a hell of a time blowing that up._

Saint James leaned around the car again, inspected the scene. “I don’t see anything out of place, so…”

“So…?”

“So I’d like to go home now.”

“Miss Saint James,” I said, and slid down the side of the car until I sitting next to her. “The VCI are looking for me, which means they are _going_ to trace that call back to you. Either they’ve already done so, and are waiting inside…or they’re coming right now. Like I said, you’re free to go, but…”

She turned around, and looked at me, and her eyes filled with confusion, and anger and lingering suspicion, but mostly something I refused to recognize. Or remember.

“Mr. Thorton,” she said, the quiet of the statement not masking the resolution, “I _am_ going home.”

I pushed myself up, then offered a hand.

“All right, then. Lead the way.”

I wasn’t sure if she was going to take it or not. But she did.

 

* * *

 

One entry and exit point, five narrow flights of metal stairs open to each floor, tight and choked off hallways. Hell on an attacker.

“This can’t be legal,” I hissed, under my breath. I hadn’t seen any fire escapes, either.

Saint James game me a quick smile before returning to the key in her hand. It shook, and she kept missing the lock.

“Here,” I said, reaching out for the keys. Better I open the door anyway.

She dropped them into my palm silently.

I let the door swing open slowly.

Huh. It _was_ much nicer on the inside. Colorful tile floors and a low ceiling with a cheap fan. White, puffy furniture arranged around a small TV and a big bookcase. Straight across a small folding card table basking in a surprising amount of light. The kitchen, really more of a collection of miniaturized appliances, was as open as the rest of the apartment. Barring two doors on the far right wall, the place looked empty.

I worked my knife free of my boot anyway.

“Can I come in?” she whispered, from behind me.

“Hang on.”

The floors didn’t make any creaking noises. Not like the ones at the safe house. The first room held a clean, compact bathroom. The second room, a bedroom that barely fit a twin, was a different story. Fortunately, barring a storm of pillows and throw blankets, it was empty too.

Strange.

“You can come in now, but stay quiet,” I called. Maybe the VCI had missed her. Mina hadn’t found anything. I didn’t see anyone. I’d do a check for bugs, but barring that…

She might be able to stay.

I crossed back over to the window, and stared out. In the glass’s reflection, I saw Saint James tuck her shoes into a small rack next to the door, and sit back on the sofa. Outside, I saw nothing. A couple of kids loping down the street, jabbing each other sides and laughing. Old woman in the courtyard of the building next to ours, pulling up some weeds and shaking them at someone inside. A police car, turning on to the street slowly and-

“Madison, I need you to get your shoes and head up to the roof,” I told her calmly.

I flicked the curved knife blade free. The car finished its turn. In the reflection, Saint James got her shoes and walked over to spy out the window.

“Oh,” she said, sounding both reassured and oddly disappointed. “It’s only a police car.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Mr. Thorton, I understand that we’re in danger, but-”

I shushed her, and held up a finger. Outside the kids stopped laughing. They looked behind them, then faced forward quickly and increased their speed. The woman paused her shaking to hobble towards her gate and inspect the street. The police car rolled to a stop a few car lengths away from Saint James’ building.

In a way, it was a relief. I knew where they were. And, judging by the two men emerging from the car, no cop uniforms, no overt weaponry but wearing concealing clothing, I knew how bad the situation could get. They knew she’d found something important. They clearly didn’t know she’d met with me. That was good. They wouldn’t be expecting resistance.

“Probably make it look like breaking and entering,” I thought out loud. Then they could play the cops who’d only been responding to a tip and had found her like this, of course. _Ублюдки._

“Make _what_ look like breaking and entering?” Saint James asked, hesitantly, and I had to remember where I was, and that she couldn’t possibly understand the depth of the risk she’d taken in trying to help me. Or she wouldn’t be asking.

“Miss Saint James,” I said gently, maintaining a careful balance between meeting her eyes, and monitoring the two agents convening on the sidewalk. “I’m sorry, but…but your boss has decided that you’re – we’re – threats. Head up to the roof. I’ll take care of this.”

“Take care of _what?_ ”

I tried to nudge her away from the window, get her moving towards the door. She didn’t budge.

 _“You pushed her too hard,”_ Mina’d said.

No, looking at the hand gripping the shoes like she was about to club someone’s forehead with them, I think I hadn’t pushed her far enough. And if she wanted me to spell it out for her…

“Saint James,” I said, dropping the niceties and estimating in my head how much longer we had before the VCI reached the front door, “Marburg wants you dead. I said I’d protect you, but I can’t do that if we’re both stuck in this apartment when they get here. So-”

I grabbed her arm, and started dragging her. She tried the whole not-budging-thing again, for all the good it did.

“- _this_ time,” I continued, and deposited her next to the door. “I’m not askin’. Let’s go.”

She didn’t take the time to slip her heels back on, only scrambled out the door with a few frightened glances back at the knife in my hand. Which…I could see why she might have been a little frightened. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for that. I _did_ have time to lock her door, jimmy the door opposite hers open, and appreciate her neighbor’s absence before I felt the slightest vibration in the wall.

I cracked the door open a tiny bit, and listened. From the stairway, the faint noise of the heavy Italian rap filling the first floor. Distant street noises. And… _there_. Irregular light scuffing noises. Quiet fuckers. Not quiet enough, though.

I stretched, and relaxed into the memories of training and practice and the adrenaline-fortified energy. Been a while since I’d been in a fight where I wasn’t either wildly outnumbered or racing to save the entire damn world, or both.

A really long time.

Think about it later.

For now, enjoy the fact that the two agents tiptoeing their way up the tiny stairs had to be single file, that it would take them minute to get past Saint James’ door, that her door was right next to the stairs.

Uneven scuffing coming closer. Metal stairs groaning out a complaint, the scuffing stopping briefly and restarting.

What were they thinking? I can’t imagine they’re looking forward to killing Saint James. It was just business, nothing personal. They were probably thinking about lunch, and how to stop hitting the edge of the stairs with the bottom of their shoes.

Almost there.

My fingers wrapped around the knob, I let my eyes close, listening, waiting, the scuffing almost there…

It stopped. Dull knocking of curled fist on her door.

“Ma’am, we need-” the first one called-

The second one looked up at me, then at the swinging door next to him, then down at the foot hooked behind his leg. That was all he managed before I swept his feet free, slammed my forearms into his chest, and flipped him down the stairs. The first man’s hand dipped under his jacket. It froze mid-motion and wrapped instead around the deep cut over his shirt and through the skin beneath. He blocked my next slash with his forearm, the blade running through the thin outer layer of his jacket and stopping short against bone, the sudden force of it making my hand shake. I let it go. The impact of my knee in his stomach wound doubled him over. I tackled him and we hit the ground together, me hooking my arms under his shoulder and dragging him backwards, him relearning how to breathe. Gasping returning to him a second later, when he and I were halfway through the neighbor’s door. He spasmed and flipped his feet wildly until they found purchase on the door frame. Too late.

I let him go, his head colliding with the ground with a loud knock and my boot sole colliding with his nose with a sharp crunchy snap and a whimper. I reached down and extracted my knife from his arm, eliciting another host of soft whining. His other hand grasped weakly at my own as I knelt back down and implanted the blade in the base of his skull. His hand slipped free, muscles loosening. His head felt heavy in my hands. I replaced it on the ground, picked my way past his corpse and the door and the smell of blood emanating from the ground.

The man on the landing sat still, too.

I walked back in to the neighbor’s apartment. A few feet from the VCI agent’s head, a TV rested on top of a low stand. A fairly expensive game system was beside it, along with some heavy-duty headphones. I swiped them both, and headed back down the stairs. The second guy’s arm felt broken, but I managed to tuck it around the system and the headphones protectively. Then, I wiped my knife clean, folded it up, and deposited it his pants pockets.

I was gonna miss that damn thing. But sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

All that remained was to search them for any of their own weapons, and retrieve Saint James without alarming her too much. I almost done with the former, when the latter took care of itself. Clicking footsteps from the stairs above me, and then a sharp gasp and an _oh my god_.

I took the stairs two at a time and skidded around casually, blocking her off from the landing.

“Miss Saint James!” I said, smiling and checking myself quickly for any obvious bloodstains. “Problems with the roof?”

“What…did they…who…”

She sat down hard on the stairs. I pulled her up by the arm.

“We need to go, Miss Saint James.”

She didn’t respond, only kept her head down, kept her eyes focused on the dead men in the doorway, and then the one on the stairs, and then only on the jagged cracks in the pavement as I led her out.

\-----------------

Friday Evening, 18:02

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome, Italy

\-----------------

The earpiece threw actual sparks down on the wooden table’s surface. The phone stubbornly stayed motionless, dark.

“Come on, Mina,” I said to it, and poked it again.

Upstairs in the loft area, Madison Saint James walked back and forth. Walked out to the patio, back into the loft, outside again. She was more quiet than the phone.

“Come on, Min – ow, _fuck_.”

I yanked my hand away from the spluttering burst of sparks. Started tapping on the table.

Saint James’ footsteps echoed as she drifted back inside, then outside.

She had to be cold out there. Sunset had come, and temperature had dropped. I should have let her – asked her to – we should have grabbed some of her stuff before we left.

I stared out the window at the darkening sky.

Maybe there’d be something on the news.

I pushed the chair back and crossed over to the couch. Brought my laptop to life. Checked the news. Nothing. Nothing but endless embassy news. I slammed the laptop closed again, cracked it open again to check the screen. It was fine.

Saint James meandered through the door. She hit the rail, turned around again, and ambled back outside. She hadn’t said anything on the trip back, either. No babbling, no shouting, no throwing the taxi door open in the middle of the street. No breaking free while walking down the sidewalk. Nothing.

My phone, quiet.

I trudged out of the living room, down the hallway to the small kitchen. There was nothing in the cabinets but a few boxes of Russian crackers and some tiny snack cakes, leftovers courtesy of G22. Right. No food. Hadn’t exactly had a chance to go out yet.

Although…the cakes were pretty tasty. Sweet. Almond-y.

That might work.

I swiped the box and headed back towards the loft stairs. The cold air swirling in through the open door was bad. Outside it was worse.

Madison was sitting at the spindly metal patio furniture in the corner, shoulders slumped over and eyes alarmingly unfocused.

“Miss Saint James,” I said, sitting and wishing I’d brought my laptop. Would have looked more official, professional. More reassuring. At least, to a civilian.

“Miss Saint James, you’re going to be okay.” I told her.

She stared at the table, hands in her lap.

“Those guys,” I tried, “they were pretty bad guys. We’ve…been tracking them for a while.”

If she believed the lie, if she’d even heard it, I couldn’t tell.

“Your boss, we can stop him, we-”

“Please stop talking,” she said monotonously. “I believe you, Mr. Thorton.”

“Oh.”

From the street, the noise of a bicycle and its squeaking wheels.

The wind cut across us both.

She didn’t move.

“Uh,” I said.

I dug one of the almond cakes free of the box, and scooted it across the table.

“They’re good,” I told her.

“I have allergies,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.

She looked at it. Poked it. Eye growing a bit wet

“I have allergies,” she repeated. _“_ I can’t. I can’t. _I can’t._ I have, I can’t, I can’t-”

She started shaking, words starting to gain speed.

“Let’s get you inside,” I interrupted, and since she was busy hyperventilating, leading her into the safehouse, down the stairs, and to the bedroom wasn’t exceptionally difficult.

I let her collapse on the bed, her tears coming freely now.

“Miss Saint James, I-” I started, and then got saved by the sudden buzzing of my phone, out on the table. “Hang on a sec.”

In the main room, it clattered around impatiently.

“Mina!” I said the moment I answered.

“Mike?” she asked, sounding reasonably confused. “Are you okay?”

“Am _I_ okay? What the hell happened to you?”

“I asked first.”

“You aren’t going to like it, not even remotely.”

She sighed. “One day, my faith in you will be rewarded.”

“Not today,” I said with forced cheerfulness, over coughing crying sounds in the bedroom.

“What’d you do this time?”

“It’s going to take a few minutes to explain.”

“I’ve got time.”

“Yeah…” I said, and looked back over my shoulder. “I might not be able to talk openly right now.”

“Do I want to know why?”

“No. Gimme a sec and I’ll tell you anyway.”

“Fine,” she said.

I pulled the phone away for a minute, quietly approached the bedroom, knocked on the open door.

Saint James, hugging a pillow, twisted around to stare at me.

“I’m just going to close your door,” I said, and she twisted back around without responding.

Unfortunately, I had to close it _and_ lock it. And then I had to carefully jam the lock, enough to stick but not enough so I couldn’t get it open from this side when I got back. This was only going to take a few minutes, and I doubted she was going to flee after what happened at her apartment, but she might.

I glanced down at the knob. The first of many huge problems with having her here. Not like I could sit around the safehouse all day making sure she didn’t get herself killed. And not like I could justify locking her in all the time. Felt weird enough as it was.

“Hey,” I said, returning to the phone and heading for the front door. “Are you sitting down right now? You might want to be sitting.”

 

* * *

 

Mina had taken it better than I expected.

“Are you sure you weren’t even a _little_ surprised?” I checked, balancing the McDonald’s bag in my arm and the phone on my shoulder.

“Nope.”

“Not even a little?”

“No.”

The inside of the house was quiet. The lamps casting weak yellow light over the floors. Other than that, dark. I dropped the bag on the side table, and went about disabling security measures.

“Come on, Mina. Admit it. You were surprised.”

“Michael,” she said, sounding a touch too condescending for my liking, “you’ve befriended a journalist that you met on a plane. You’ve agreed to meet, alone and completely unprepared, with a _G22_ agent. You said you were going to protect her, so, no. I wasn’t surprised.”

“You keeping telling yourself that.”

“Uh huh.”

“So…” I said, reaching the last of the devices, “you never explained the ‘oh shit I’ve gotta go’ moment.”

“It was nothing I couldn’t handle,” she said, quickly. Evasively.

“Sounded pretty serious from my end.”

“I know,” she said sharply, “that you only see me as your handler, but I do have other responsibilities, Agent Thorton.”

 _O-kay_.

“Listen, you don’t wanna talk about, I won’t ask,” I said.

“It’s not…”

She sighed.

“Another agent almost caught me. I had to wait awhile before I could contact you again. Like I said, nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Oh.”

It still didn’t sound like nothing. But if she didn’t want to tell me, then fine.

“I’m going to go talk to Saint James. Can you do some digging on Marburg for me?”

“Look, Mike, if there was something wrong, I would-”

“-I know.”

“As long as you know that.”

“I do,” I said brightly. “Now, about Marburg…?”

“I’ll get on it.”

“Great. Then I’m going to go check on our guest.”

“ _Your_ guest,” she reminded. “For the record, I had nothing to do with this.”

“Duly noted. Mike, out,” I said, and slid the phone closed.

The door remained jammed, and since the bedroom didn’t have a window, smart money said she was still in there. Took me a couple of seconds to get it open.

Inside, all the lights were off.

“Miss Saint James?”

She looked up, lifted her chin off the pillow she was curled over.

“I, uh…” I started.

Her eyes were still dripping tears. Some snot had started to leak from her nose, and her whole face was red.

“I have some food?” I offered, feeling a little inadequate.

“And I can get you some tissues,” I added, watching her swipe her hand under her nose.

“Just, um…” I pointed over my shoulder, towards the main room. “I’ll be at the table.”

It took her a couple of minutes to amble out. I looked up from my newspaper, and smiled at her. She hardly moved the chair, just sort of slipped in. She didn’t actually smile back until her eyes took in the McDonalds bag sitting on the table, and even then, it seemed to take most the energy out of her.

“You’re in Rome,” she said, flicking her eyes up to mine.

“What can I say? I’m a patriot.”

“That’s…” she said, slowly, like she wasn’t quite sure whether or not she was making noise. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

I put the paper down, and pushed the bag over to her. “Didn’t know what you liked, so…went with basics.”

She grabbed the burger at the top without looking.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.

She teased the crinkled paper, and shrugged.

“I don’t really think you’d understand.”

And there it was again. The sad detachment in her olive green eyes that I really didn’t wanna think about.

“I might,” I said anyway.

“I don’t know…you’ve got your family, your job-” she waved a hand around- “your home.”

“This isn’t exactly _my_ house,” I said studying her, ignoring the alarm and the feeling of my heart being unpleasantly jolted into action. “What exactly do you think you know about my family, Miss Saint James?”

“I…” she started, shaking her head briefly. “I’m sorry, I thought…that man in the photograph? The one on your nightstand? Sean?”

“Oh!” I said. _That was…_ “Uh…yeah. Right. That.”

She frowned, opened her mouth like she was going to say something, and then didn’t. Great. Because now _I_ had to say something and yeah, the alarm was gone, but I swear she was staring at me.

“He’s trying to kill me,” I informed her, working not to grit my teeth.

“He’s trying to kill you.”

“He’s a traitor and he’s trying to kill me,” I explained.

“Then…why do you-”

“He just-” I interrupted, then stopped. She _was_ staring at me.

“He reminds me,” I said, carefully, “of home.”

“But he’s trying to kill you.”

“You’d think that would matter,” I said, feeling the skin on my face itch. “But apparently, it’s complicated.”

She eyed me, tried to smile again. Didn’t get very far.

I let her sit. Let her play around with the flimsy wax paper, crunching the corners and folding the edge into half-shapes. Let her tear into shreds the edges where some tired, underpaid employee had forgotten to tuck it properly.

Her eyes were starting to tear up again.

I had to do it, didn’t I? Had to dodge the small pain in the center of my chest, had to confront the familiar look on her face? I didn’t want to. I got ready to say something but the tightness in my own throat strangled the words away. I didn’t want to, but she was starting to shake a little, and I had to.

“You know,” I said, ignoring the tactile memories of tissue paper and wood polish and – I said _ignoring_ them-

I shook my head. She blinked at me.

“You know,” I said again, bending my lips into a smile, “I can’t go home either.”

“Why?” she asked, immediately.

“I…I did something, and I got some very influential people riled up.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you do it?”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

She paused to consider that for a moment, then leaned back up.

“Is it Mr. Marburg?”

“An old friend of his. At least, I think they’re friends.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Okay.”

And with that shocking underreaction, she tore the wrapper free of the burger, flipped the top bun off. She picked two pickles off, and seemed prepared to disassemble the entire thing. Went about it with a mechanical focus that was all the more alarming for the faint sense of everything in the room being too close to me, the certainty that my fingers could feel every grain in the table, the hyperawareness of electricity buzzing in the air around the TV and the phone and in the kitchen the refrigerator humming. If this was how I was handling it – and I was fine – and she was a civilian with this landing on her plate?

“How you feeling?”

She smiled vaguely. “Good.”

“Really?” I couldn’t keep the surprise clear of my tone.

She paused.

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“I – of course you do. You can feel however you want to. Those two men were trying-”

“You _murdered_ those two men!” she shouted suddenly, slamming her burger down and smushing it under a palm. “You- I don’t- You-”

“Madison, you have to understand-”

“-And now the _police_ are trying to – to – so I can’t call them either-”

“We’re on the same side, Miss-”

 _“SHUT UP!”_ she yelled, brandishing her burger at me, a pickle falling loose. Strand of hair breaking from her headband and falling loose too. “ _Just- just-”_

She froze, muscles tight and shoulders raised and breaths coming in huffs. Then, in-between inhales, as quickly as it came the rage disappeared. The limp deadness back in its place.

“Am I safe here?” she asked, eyes dull and voice flat.

“Yea-” I started, and she held up a hand.

 _“Am I safe here?"_ she asked again.

I sat back. Looked out the window at the sky, half-expecting the clouds and the blizzards and the freezing cold to be back.

“Yes,” I said. Lied. It didn’t matter.

“Good,” she said. “I’m going to sleep.”

She scraped her chair back. Walked back to the bedroom following an uneven line. She was still wearing her heels.

As soon as I heard the door click shut, I grabbed the bag from the table, brought it to the kitchen. Stuffed everything in the fridge. I didn’t feel much like eating.

Outside, it was a familiar kind of cold. An errant snatch of conversation floated up from the lane, but I couldn’t make it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the official record _ap:tor_ !mikey is biracial, but in the middle of an angry crowd didn't seem the best opportunity for him to elaborate on that  
>  also for the record, ah...this whole bit isn't in the game. i just...it always struck me as odd that she just went along with you at first. the next chapter isnt in the game either  
> also _also _a thing that IS canon (literally) is that picture of sean. like buddy. mikey friend. y u keep that next to ur bed all the time there fam?__


	30. Titus Quinctius Flamininus's Speech before the Achaeans

\-----------------

Saturday, 3/8, 6:32

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome, Italy

\-----------------

I shuffled several pages of notes around on the coffee table.

_-Halbech smuggles weapons into Moscow via Surkov.  
-VCI bombs the embassy – why?_

  * _To kill Surkov?_
  * _Because they were hired by Halbech?_
  * _Because terrorism sells weapons?_
    * _It sells more weapons through_ official _channels. So why would Halbech investin the black market?_
    * _Of course, Surkov is not black market on the surface. She’s a legit businesswoman._
    * _How important is it, then, that Surkov_ stay _legit?_
    * _And what “disagreement” did she and Halbech have?_
  * _Is the VCI connected to Alpha Protocol through Halbech?_
  * _How is the VCI connected to Halbech??_



I added yet another question mark to it, looked over a second page.

  1. _Yancy Westridge – Alpha Protocol_
  2. _Sergei Surkov – ?_
  3. _Conrad Marburg – VCI_



And of course, the one thread connecting them all

  1. _Henry Leland – Halbech_



Halbech wanted to fake a war, wanted money. Leland owned Marburg, Marburg had said as much. And if Marburg’s got something to do with the VCI, then the VCI was likely under Halbech control.

The trainyard didn’t fit in. The VCI wanted the train, the train full of Halbech weapons, but why would Halbech make it that hard for them? And why leave the weapons there? And who were the Russian gangsters trying to make sure they didn’t? Couldn’t be Surkov’s people, Surkov should have had access to those weapons already. Then again, the VCI should have had access as well.

Goddamn, it was giving me a headache. It didn’t make sense.

_VCI bombs the embassy_

  * _Is the VCI connected to Alpha Protocol (via Halbech)?_
  * _How is the VCI connected to Halbech???_



_Damned if I know._

Marburg was using Al-Bara. For something. _Once his use to me was at an end…_ Al-Bara probably knew something about Halbech. Fine. Kill him to stop him from acting on it. But here I am, and if I’m dead, I don’t feel it.

Revenge?

Marburg didn’t seem the type. But he was awfully touchy about Halbech.

I grabbed another blank sheet.

ROME

  1. _What did al-Bara know?_
    1. _Why kill him?_
  2. _Why is the VCI in Rome?_
    1. _Halbech business, clearly, but what?_
  3. _What is Al-Samad planning here?_



 

Too many questions. _Way_ too many. And probably not enough time to get answers, not with just one of me, not with one of me who was going to have to spend half his time keeping a civilian in check-

Speak of the devil. Quick footsteps came from behind the couch. I shuffled the papers into one stack, flipped the over, twisted around-

She was frowning, holding her reassembled blackberry with a thumb hovering over the buttons.

I smiled at her pleasantly, walked a hand over the couch cushions towards my pistol-

“Don’t move,” she said, “or I’ll press call.”

“Can I at least ask who you’re calling?” I said, and moved my hand much, much slower.

“The police,” she said.

I stopped.

“Uh,” I said.

She shook her phone.

“Miss Saint James, they won’t-”

“My _name_ is Madison.”

“Okay. Madison. The thing is-”

“And I have a deal for you.”

“A what?” I said.

“A deal,” she repeated, her finger moving a little closer to the buttons. “Do you want to hear it, or not?”

She was trembling a little. Trying to keep her eyes fixed on me, but they kept sliding, summoned to the place behind the sofa where my pistol was.

She couldn’t know for certain, but she could probably guess.

“Go for it,” I said, and slung both hands over the back of the sofa, free and clear where she could see them.

She nodded once, then nodded again. Swallowed.

“Good,” she said.

Then she lowered her phone a bit.

“You killed those two guys,” she stated. And even though it wasn’t a question, she waited until I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said.

“And you’re some kind of…I don’t know, but if my boss is as bad as you say he is… _and_ he’s trying to kill you…”

“Yeah?”

“We go to the police,” she said.

“No,” I said.

She gripped the phone. “I’ll do it.”

“After yesterday, you do that, and both of us dying is the _good_ ending.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, her voice darting even higher. Eyes flicking to the screen of her phone, thumb slipping a little closer.

“Madison-” I started.

She turned to face the windows, a flash of light caught across her eyes, and she smashed the button down.

_“Shit!”_

I vaulted the sofa. Her eyes went wide as we slammed into the ground. Her cell phone spun off across the floor. I went for the phone. Checked the tone – it was still ringing, thank the goddamn stars above – tore it apart and flung the battery halfway across the room.

“What the _HELL_ were you _thinking?!”_

She’d pushed herself into a sitting position, had scooted across the floor until her back met with the sofa, and now she was watching me, rubbing the side of her head.

I tried to stay calm. “Miss Saint – Madison. I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m _trying_ to _protect_ you, but you have to understand that I can’t do that if you bring the cops and everyone else this. There are people looking for you, you understand that, right? Those two guys – they were literally there to _murder_ you. You know that, yeah? You can’t go-”

“You want to talk about understanding?” she said, her voice watery. “Here’s something to understand: I’m _bringing_ this to the authorities. You can’t watch me all the time.”

“You’re right; I can’t. So here’s a counteroffer.”

“I don’t want one.”

“Part one: you can tell them after we’re all done, after we’ve got your boss dead to rights, we’ll give the cops everything we’ve found. You get your law and order, we get to not die in the process. Okay?”

“How do I know you won’t just…what you did with those other guys.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s like you said. I can’t watch you all the time. So, I get you a new cellphone, and if I don’t keep up my end, you get to handle your end. Which brings me to part two: if you’re in, then you’re in.”

“In?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. If you wanna help giftwrap him for the cops, then you’re gonna help with pinning him down.”

“I already said I would,” she said.

“Then we don’t have a problem.”

She stared some more, shoulders pressed deep into the sofa.

“You mean it?” she asked.

 _If I didn’t, would you be able to tell?_ I thought.

I placed her phone on the ground, gave it a small push, just enough for it to skitter over towards her.

“Of course I mean it,” I said.

Enough of it, anyway.

 

* * *

 

 _“I certainly hope you don’t blame me for something_ you _could have prevented, Mike.”_

 _Leland was holding on to the sounds like he had a fucking_ _right to say my name like that, like he had a right to say it at all._

_“Oh,” he added, and looked over at me. “How did that turn out, by the way? Saving the damsel in distress and all?”_

 

* * *

 

She looked over what notes I’d given her again. Rubbed her head and took another sip of what had to be the most bitter smoothie humankind was capable of making.

“So…Mr. Marburg is working for this company, Halbech.”

I nodded.

“And you think he’s using the VCI to do…something.

“Yep.”

“And you think we – he had something to with Flight 6133. How does Al-Samad fit in again?”

“They don’t,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Okay…I think I’ve got it,” she said. “Anything else I need to know?”

 _The people you work for assaulted an embassy? The people_ they _work for tried to eradicate me with a goddamn missile? World War III is coming?_

“No,” I said.

“Are you sure you don’t want some?” she asked, looking pointedly at the _other_ cup of green sludge sitting on the coffee table.

“ _No_. No, thanks.”

“Then…are we done here?”

I stuck a foot up on the coffee table, pulled my PDA out and checked the time. 8:09.

“Why?” I asked, “You got somewhere to be?”

“No,” she said, “but I need to make a few lists.”

“Lists?”

“Lists,” she said, and stood up. Swiped the other smoothie-thing.

“Good luck with your notes,” she added.

 

* * *

 

_ Saturday _

_Let’s see if I can’t remember the hell this week has been._

_Yesterday…yesterday was Friday. Has it really only been a week since the embassy? It can’t be._

_It is. Last Friday. Leap Day. Only a week ago. What would I be doing at home, with a week's worth of time? Laundry, maybe. Maybe. Half a book if I was lucky. Time feels so strange right now. Only a couple of Fridays before the embassy someone tried to missile me of the surface of the earth. Time feels so…_

_I’m kind of glad we left Saint James’ stuff behind. I mean, logistically, she needed_ something _to wear for these next few weeks, so that was a great excuse to get out. I probably should have convinced her to stay in the safehouse, but…it was nice to get out. And she seemed happy about it. Not that she talked much. I can’t say I blame her. Haven’t exactly given her many reasons to trust me. Work with me, sure, but…anyway, today was slow for the first time in a long time. It won’t last. I caught Saint James up to speed. We’re gonna tackle Marburg’s villa soon – I need answers, and they’ll be there. But first, I think it might be a good idea to address this NSA post. I’d rather tackle the CIA one, but Mina says she has codes for the NSA. And there’s probably less people._

_You know, I’m almost glad I’m off the books right now. A week after the Moscow embassy – I can’t imagine being on duty right now._

_On duty. With resources. And backup. None of this hiding business._ _But I’d rather not die. Not with so much on the line_.

_Great. Saint James is watching TV now. They aren’t going to let go of the embassy, are they?_

_Especially not when people are still in the hospital._

 

_ Sunday _

_Okay, so here’s a thing I forgot about staying with civilians. They make so much goddamn noise. Televisions and dropping books and humming and blenderizing what sure seems like every single vegetable I brought back from the market yesterday morning, and_ _somehow everything they do is always fifty percent more noisy and takes a hundred percent longer. And apparently if you’re asleep on the couch with a gun in your lap, they freak out. I think the last time I had a straight-up civvy roommate was in college._

_Enough about that though._

_There’s been no reference to what happened at Saint James’ apartment anywhere online, in print, anywhere as far as I can tell. Who is covering for who, is the question?_

_I’m gonna have to bug a goddamn NSA listening post, aren’t I? It’s the safest option, honestly. And yeah, it’s not that safe._

_Mina’s working on verifying her passcode. She doesn’t think this is going to be that tough. She, of course, is not the one who has to go face to face with the NSA._

_I_ don’t _want to do this._

_I’d better get ready._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> d150-152


	31. La Tempesta

“Where are you going?” Saint James asked from the sofa.

“I thought with all the blender…experiments” I kindly offered, “that it might be nice to have a counterpoint.”

“Experiments.”

“Yeah.”

She laid her book down on the couch and twisted all the way around to stare at me.

“I…was gonna get some gelato. You like that, right?” I said.

“It’s March. And it’s cold outside.”

“It won’t melt on the way back, then.”

She stared at me for another second, then cracked a smile and rolled her eyes.

“Fine, fine,” she said. “You tourists.”

“Hey!”

“Bring me back a Leaning Tower of Pisa statuette.”

“See if I don’t,” I said.

 

\------------------------

Sunday, 3/9, 15:05

Gelaterina Nico

\------------------------

You couldn’t even _pretend_ to be there for ice cream. Rust covered iron chairs and tables out front, on one a decayed wasp’s nest under the lip, in case you weren’t scared yet. The other table was toppled over on its side, a scrap of green and white awning laying on it. If the inside was worse I couldn’t tell. The windows were covered in grime and a few old rain tracks.

“I think I just got salmonella by looking at this place,” I reported.

“Got to keep the public from dropping in for a cone,” Mina explained over the earbuds.

“I’d say their cover is working perfectly,” I said. “This has to be the worst posting in the entire intelligence community.”

“Well, data gathering isn’t exactly as prestigious as field work.”

I leaned back into surveillance. The bricks of the building were as cold as the air outside today. No more sunny weather. The lane was deserted.

I couldn’t see any cameras on the shop across the lane – actually, calling it a shop was charitable. NO cameras implied human surveillance. But there hadn’t been any patrols. Yet.

“Anything new on our newest Halbech friend?” I asked, and pulled my jacket a little tighter around me.

“Conrad Marburg, or…?”

“ _Conrad Marburg,_ ” I reflected. “Must have been teased out of elementary school.”

“You two should have lots to talk about then,” she said innocently.

“Just because my name sounds like the son of a Norse thunder god doesn’t mean I had any problems in school… _Mina Tang_.”

“Whatever you say, Mike. And for the record, I love my name.”

This street was completely empty. Forget NSA people, forget locals – there weren’t even any birds hanging around. A quick breeze blew the piece of awning off the table.

“So?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the weight of the flashdrive in my pocket.

“Nothing solid. All the details are sketchy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I fished out the flashdrive, inspected it. Wouldn’t take but a couple of minutes to get something workable on the servers.

Probably.

Hell of a long time.

I caught myself starting to count the cobbles, and focused back on the dirty gelato building. It sat sandwiched between two narrow doors, apartments by the looks of them. The curtains in the various windows did not move.

Strange that they _all_ had curtains, yeah? You’d think at least _one_ person would have gone with blinds. Or nothing.

“You’ll need to come up with a good reason to be here,” Mina said, after a few uneasy minutes. “Hmm… looks like their scheduled for server maintenance and security upgrades this month. That might get you in.”

“I think I can smooth talk my way past a couple of them,” I said, trying for a confidence I wasn’t exactly feeling.

“Don’t play games, Mike; these guys are trained to spot double agents and imposters. If their post is compromised, they’ll shut it down, and we’ll lost our access.”

“Yeah, I-”

“You’ll _also_ ,” she said, on a roll now, “need to give the correct handshake code to identify yourself as an agent.”

“Secret handshake? What are we, the Shriners?”

Over the earpiece, she took a short breath.

“It’s the passphrase, Mike.”

 _If it’s the passphrase,_ I thought, _then it’s not really a handshake, now_ is _it?_

“ _You_ ,” she explained further, like I didn’t know how a passphrase worked, “give the correct phrase, _they_ give the correct response, and you both know everything’s on the level.”

I held the flashdrive up to eye level, looked across the vacant street at the gelato shop behind the device.

“So?”

“So…?”

“So what’s the code?”

“Oh,” she said. “Tell them…the Adirondacks are beautiful this time of year. They should respond with, ‘Yes, but the Alps are lovely all year long.’”

“Got it.” _Time to get this over with._ “Let’s see if anybody’s home.”

The metal handle of the door was covered in…better not to think about it. Inside, a bug skittered across the dirty tiles. A backlit menu board flickered twice. There were no cameras.

There were also no people.

The air was strangely warm.

Not too late to leave, right?

Right.

I walked up to the register instead. A fly circled my head, then plonked down on the counter.

There _was_ a bell. A greenish bell caked in dried ice cream.

A bad case of e-coli _might_ hamper the whole save-the-world thing I was working on. And as much as I didn’t like the idea of waiting-

Something fell in the back of the shop, something metallic and loud like a dozen pots tumbling down all at once. My hand went straight for a knife I no longer had.

“What was that?” Mina asked.

“I-” I started.

The door swung open. A tall, scruffy man came lazily trudging from the back. His shirt was stained with at least three different colors and he was licking a grubby ice cream scoop.

“Uh-” Mina said.

Then the man scratched his hair with it.

It made a horrible wet squishy noise.

He stared at me.

I stared at him.

“Can I help you?” he finally asked in lightly accented English.

“I’m here to fix the computers?” I said.

He eyed me suspiciously. “We don’t have a problem with the computer.”

“I-” _just want to go home-_ “hear the… _Adirondacks_ are beautiful this time of year.”

“I don’t like the mountains,” he said, and frowned. “And you’re here to fix the computers?”

Not anymore I wasn’t. I almost took a step back, caught myself in time to play it off as simply shifting my weight.

“He didn’t give the correct response phrase,” Mina chimed in urgently. “Something’s-”

_-Wrong._

“Uh…” I said. “Yeah. Say, about those Adirondacks…”

“I _told_ you, I don’t like mountains. Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the computers.”

“That’s _not_ the response phrase,” Mina pointed out again. “Stay on guard, Mike. If my code is out of date-”

He gestured at me, then waved back towards the door.

“-they might suspect you’re not on the level.”

He pushed it open, slouched through it. The door swung once. The door swung twice.

I hopped the counter, grabbed it before it could swing back a third time, then followed him through it.

 

I could feel his breathing on my shoulder.

“So, my friend,” he said, leaning over me to inspect the blinking multicolored lights of the server bank. “What do you need?”

“Nothing serious,” I said with a shrug. “Just here to upgrade your security systems.”

“Oh,” he said sadly. Like he thought I’d wanted some of his godforsaken ice cream. But he brightened up fast. “You got it!”

He tapped an open palm against the servers, gave me a nod, and squeezed out of the room.

Leaving me alone.

No cameras in here, either.

Or locks on any of the doors in the building, now that I thought about it.

I got to work, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that cameras or no, I was being watched.

 

When I walked back out a few minutes later, he was leaning against the counter, staring with a forlorn look at the windows. When he saw me, he glanced over, and smiled broadly.

“So, no more computer troubles, huh?” he inquired.

“You should be all set,” I told him. “Fort Meade can rest easy now.”

He nodded. His distant look returned, and he swiveled his head back around to face the windows.

I slid past him, got out from behind the counters. I felt like my feet were sticking to the floor. Not a lot, but enough to notice it with every step.

The humming of a refrigerator cut out. The gelato man started cursing and smacking something metallic. The noise shuddered back into existence.

I realized I’d stopped walking.

This was too easy.

Keep walking.

I could see his reflection in the dirty store front windows. He was messing around under the counter. Looking back up at me every few seconds.

Another bug skittered across the floor, running across the tiles in front of my foot. There was a dingy bell hanging from the top of the door that I hadn’t noticed before. The handle of the door felt gritty. A cold breeze crept in through the opening door-

“Hey my friend!” he shouted suddenly. His reflection kept one hand under the counter.

I squeezed my eyes shut briefly, then relaxed into a professional smile. Turned to face him.

His arm tensed. He grabbed whatever was under the counter, swung it out and leveled it at me.

“Cone to go?” he offered cheerfully.

I cracked one eye open.

He was holding a dripping messy cone full of green and pink and brown gelato.

It would have been good cover to take it. But the door was right there, right behind me, the outside so close.

I nodded apologetically him, waved with the hand not currently tight around my pistol, and got out before he could say anything else.

 

\------------------------

16:22

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

\------------------------

I opened the door and several pieces of paper slipped out. In fact, the entire floor was covered in loose leaf. There had to be at _least_ a hundred sheets. Maybe two. Madison sat in the middle of it all, scribbling away on a clipboard.

“Can you grab those?” she asked without looking up.

The writing was…alien. It looked like aliens had descended down to Earth and covered the lines in odd curves and angles and hooks.

“What are you _doing?”_

“Put them on the table, please.”

I picked my way through her papers, each one with the same creepy writing, a couple of phrases in Italian here or there. The papers on the table contained sketches and layouts rather that writing.

“I got you something,” I said, giving the small plastic bag a little shake.

“I don’t need it.”

“Promise you do.”

I hadn’t anticipated that, but I could pretend I had, right?

She unclipped a paper from her board, held it up to the light, then deposited it in a small stack to her right.

“Fine. I’ll bite.”

 _“Fine,_ she says. It’s better than fine. They were out of towers, but…”

I tossed her the miniature plastic Colosseum paperweight I’d gotten from a shivering and opportunistic street vendor.

“You can put in on your papers – whatever they are.”

She turned the paperweight over in her hands, ran a nail between the ridges. Closed it between her hands and tucked it against her chest.

Didn’t speak.

“Whatever they are, which would be…?” I asked.

She still didn’t say anything.

I pulled her small cup of mango gelato out of the bag and waded back through the papers. The woman at the gelato store down the street had recommended it especially. Plus, unlike the NSA’s gelato, this one probably wouldn’t kill anyone.

“I also got you this,” I said, and sat it by her knee.

“Thank you,” she said, staring at the ground. “I’d like to finish my papers now.”

“Sure thing. I should be doing some work of my own.” _Not gallivanting all over Rome buying ice cream and souvenirs._

I tried to work. But I had a civilian falling apart in my living room. It felt a bit more pressing that refreshing Clearinghouse over and over again. There wasn’t anything I could do about it though, except get the Marburg issue under wraps as fast as I could. I couldn’t undo the VCI deciding to go after her. I sure as hell couldn’t undo the VCI coming after me.

I could get her out of the city. As soon as we’d finished with the villa. I could probably ask G22 for a favor. God knows they owed me one. And weren’t we supposed to be allies?

I got my laptop from the coffee table.

Madrid was a nice city. I’d always wanted to go. But unless Saint James spoke Spanish she’d probably stick out undercover. Britain would have been a good choice, if they weren’t so buddy-buddy with the US. Who the hell knew how far Alpha Protocol’s influence went? She could go to Hong Kong, maybe. Was English common there? I couldn’t remember.

Or she could just lay low in an EU country. Hm. According to friend Google, Portugal has nice winter weather. And nice architecture. Good enough for an art major? Just for a few weeks.

“Michael,” she said, and shook the bundle of papers in my ear.

“What?”

The floor was entirely clear of papers. She shook the stack again.

“I’m going to translate these later, but for now…do you have a safe place for papers?”

“No one’s gonna break in,” I told her. “What language is that?”

“It’s shorthand.”

“Shorthand? People still use that?”

“I wrote down every conversation me and Marburg had, all the layouts I could think of, copies of things he had me send, and all the information I could remember from the database. The one where they had the…contracts. I didn’t know what your people would need, so I did everything I could.”

Oh, _yeah._ I told her I had people. Ha.

“I’m ready to talk about the villa whenever you are,” she added.

I took the stack from her. It was heavier than I expected.

“When were you doing this?”

“At night,” she said. “I haven’t been sleeping much. Will these help?”

“Yeah, it’ll help. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

She plunked down next to me on the couch.

“Anything on the news?” she asked, tucking her feet under a throw pillow.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

I thumbed the pages. Her gelato was gone from the table, and her Colosseum paperweight was nowhere to be seen.

“You seemed upset.”

“I was. But I’m handling with it. Hand me the remote.”

She switched the TV on, surfed through several local Italian channels until she settled on a slow program about some art auction. Not sleeping was not _handling it,_ by any measure.

“What do you think of Lisbon?” I asked.

“It’s nice,” she said. “I like Rome better.”

“Good to know,” I said.

 

 

I was walking through the city and it was empty. An old, old city, a ruin of something Roman with columns and broken street stones.

“Hello?” I said.

I handed me a large paintbrush. Half of my face was covered in dripping blue ink.

“You have to take cover,” he said.

 _No need_ , I thought. _It was already over._ The ruins had died a long time ago.

He nodded.

 _“Mike!”_ Madison shouted from the sand on the ground.

The room was dark, and cold, and there wasn’t any light. I couldn’t move my feet because there were blankets all over them.

Someone was talking to me.

 _“Mr. Thorton, please,_ ” Madison said, and shook me again.

I was on the ground, and the couch was beside me, as was a throw blanket I’d stolen from my bedroom. Madison’s hair was frazzled.

“Wha?” I said.

My head hurt.

“Oh thank god,” she said, and let go of me. Then she changed her mind, grabbed me again. Tugged me up until I complied, and sat up on the sofa beside her. “I couldn’t…you were shouting.”

“Mm?” I said. The moon was filtering in through the open windows. Soft breeze freezing the house. Midnight, maybe. The hell’d I been doing?

My laptop was on the ground, under the coffee table, upside down.

“Shit,” I said. I rose to get it.

Madison grabbed my wrist and pulled me back down.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Am _I_ okay?”

“You were shouting,” she said.

“I was shouting.”

“Yes, you were. I…”

I looked at her.

“I thought you were having a nightmare.”

I would have known if I was having a nightmare, thanks.

“No,” I said. “Just working.”

“Just working.”

“Just working,” I affirmed.

“Oh.”

“Yep. So…” Better question. “What are _you_ doing up this late?”

“I heard you,” she said. “So I came out to check on you.”

Sure thing. She just _happened_ to be up. Didn’t she say she was having trouble sleeping?

I leaned back into the sofa.

“You know where the remote is?” I asked her.

“I don’t really feel like TV,” she said.

“We could just sit here. Silently. In the dark. Little depressing, I think.”

“I think I’ll go sit on the balcony for a while, thanks.”

“You _could_ do that. Or, I could read you something.”

“Read?” she said, with a little laugh in the back of her tone, a little incredulity. “Aren’t we a little old for that?”

“One way to find out,” I said. “There’s a book in your room, on the table. I think it’s behind…you know what, I’ll get it.”

The bed was well made, better than it had been even on the first day I’d walked into the place. Covers creased on the corners. She’d left my stuff alone, not that there was much of it. I’d have to move it. Since she’d been here for a while.

The book was in the nightstand drawer, not on it, like I’d assumed.

I let her look it over while I got comfortable on the sofa again. We might be here for a while.

“Keats?” she said doubtfully.

“I like McDonalds. I also read. The two _can_ co-exist.”

Both true. Although she didn’t need to know this particular book wasn’t mine. Shipped direct from Saudi Arabia.

“No, I wasn’t saying… I just-”

“Giving you a hard time. I shouldn’t. I’m sorry. Pick one. I’ll read it. We’ll take turns until someone falls asleep.”

She closed her eyes, and flipped the pages. They made a soft _shhh_ noise that got lost in the rustle of a breeze.

“Here,” she said. _“Hyperion.”_

“Hm.”

“What?”

“I know it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, the-” _first time I had a cover ID I went overboard. Memorized a bunch. Used none of it. Didn’t even need the cover. Target got himself killed choking on chicken at a birthday dinner party._

Well, couldn’t explain that one.

“Memorized a bunch of it in high school,” I said instead.

“I’ll test you,” she said.

“Oh, come on-”

“It’ll be fun.” She smiled, and snuggled even deeper into the couch cushions.

“Okay,” I said. “But be nice. It’s been years.”

“I’m a very nice person.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

 _“Go_ already _,”_ she said.

I could remember one line off the bat. Maybe two.

So I might as well sell it.

 _“Saturn is fallen,”_ I recited dramatically. _“Am I too to fall?”_

“Pretty good so far,” she said.

_“Am I to leave this…”_

She looked up from the book and raised her eyebrows at me. “This?”

Haven? Heaven?

Haven.

 _“Am I to leave this haven of my rest,”_ I said, sparing a quick glance at her. She nodded, gestured _go on._ _“This cradle of my glory, this soft…”_

Now, it wasn’t _crime._

However.

Once the word popped up in my head, it wouldn’t leave. In fact, I couldn’t think of much else that rhymed with crime.

Rhyme.

Fuck.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Madison observed.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Maybe it didn’t even rhyme with crime. I thought it did. Maybe it went along with _rest._ What rhymed with _rest?_ Best? Had to make sense, though.

Nest?

“Give up?” she asked.

I grumbled a _sure._

“Didn’t quite catch that.”

“Fine. What was it?”

“ _Clime,_ ” she said. “As in climate. This poem’s pretty depressing.”

“His brother was dying while he wrote it.”

 _“I cannot see – but darkness, death and darkness._ Sounded like he really loved him.”

“I don’t think the poem was about his brother. Loss, maybe, but…anyway. He never finished it.”

“Hm,” she said.

_I cannot see – but darkness, death and darkness_

Wonder if Keats had been looking at out the moon thinking about that line. Day after his brother died, maybe. Maybe Madison was right.

“I should get back to bed.” Her voice came out of the darkness. She was beside me, I could see her mouth moving, but it still felt like someone else was speaking. Dubbing her words over.

“We picked a bad poem.”

“We did.”

“There’s always tomorrow.”

“So they say.”

That they did indeed. My job to make sure they were right about that.

“I should get back to it,” I said.

“Goodnight then, Michael.”

She rose from the sofa. Walked back across the living room with her arms wrapped around her, walking slowly, eyes fixed on the moon.

“Good night, Miss Saint James.”

“Madison,” she said.

 

* * *

 

Monday

_We’ve almost cracked Surkov’s data. I say we, but I mean Mina. She said, though, that we’re in this together. I asked her if that meant she was partially responsible for Saint James, even a little bit. She said she was considering hanging up. Anyway, it’ll be another few days until she – we have anything useful._

_I had_ no _idea how we were gonna bust into Marburg’s place without him noticing. So the new idea is… have him notice. Farmed out some recon work on Clearinghouse. Bought original blueprints for Marburg’s villa. Thank you, capitalism. The plans_ mostly _match up with Madison’s. I doubt she’s hiding anything. Misremembering seems more likely. There’s a concealed entrance in the garden, apparently. He’ll have people there if he’s smart, but it might make for a good emergency exit point._

 _Madison says her arm hurts from all the writing she’s been doing. Wanted to take the evening off, and I said why the hell not. I can only read so much in a day. There were some DVDs in a box in the corner, old movies, black and white and everything. Who the hell brought_ those _to a safehouse? Yeah, you’re there to work, but if you’re gonna bring them anyway might as well get some good ones. Not that old movies aren’t good, they’re just…I don’t know._

 _I should go. Madison’s dug up something called_ Sunset Boulevard. _Sounds really fucking depressing._

Tuesday

_According to the whispers of the survivors of Marburg’s men, they aren’t all VCI. His people call themselves ‘Deus Vult’. A lot of them have been trained by the DoJ. Wonder if I know any of them._

_Is Deus Vult a special sect of the VCI? Or are they separate? Better question – does it matter? Marburg runs them._

_If…_

_Hm._

_Sie was –_ is _VCI, and she was going after Halbech weapons._ _What if there’s a schism in the VCI? Marburg, Deus Vult, and Halbech on one side; Sie and who knows who else on the other?_

_Better question: is Sie the breakaway faction, or is Deus Vult?_

_And if the VCI was trying to kill/kidnap Surkov, where does that put her? Was her disagreement with Halbech over this?_

_Damn it, we need her data._

 

Wednesday

_Mina’s found a DV server back home. Can’t help but think about Deus Vult. She’s going to look into it._

_Anyway, we’re running the op tomorrow. I don’t think Marburg wants to kill me. I know what he said, and I know what Madison’s files say, but…he could have done it, right there. Would have been easy, orders or no. Not that I would have made it easy, but…_

_Al-bara knew something and he’s dead. Madison knew something and they tried to kill her. I know more than the both of them and what? I get off with a stern warning?_

_Who’s telling him to back off? It can’t be Alpha Protocol. They made that very clear._

_Halbech? But that doesn’t make any sense. I’m trying to take them down._

_Anyway, I think he’ll talk. I think he’ll say more than he should. I don’t think he’ll let me go but I think I can get away clean. This safehouse had better be as safe as Mina says it is._

_If he didn’t want to kill me before he will soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> d152-165. also moved chp 37 here as well.
> 
> fun fact: idk who was being cute with this game but _hyperion_ is the scrolltext for the loading screen boxes AND "dan simmons -AKA Keats', is verbatim listed as one of someone's (presumably michael's) old aliases. so that's fun. idk if anyone else out there has noticed that or not. honestly that's why i figure michael all iterations would be into books. because who picks that for an aliases just randomly?
> 
> on an unrelated note the game really freakin' wants you to shoot the gelato man. like a lot.


	32. Night view of the Imperial Forums

_Seriously. Nothing?_ the email read.

I looked back over my shoulder. Down the hall, Madison’s door was closed. If she wasn’t sleeping, she was at least trying.

I got up and moved to the other end of the table anyway.

_I mean we hear about the murder of an Italian professor outside of Rome, and - intrigue! He was looking into ‘murican!Companies. But wait, there’s more - he might be al-samad. Right? Get this, though - no word from our ally WHO IS LIVING IN ROME. None. You aren’t actually a rogue agent; you do have to follow up on this ‘ally’ situation._

_So, hallllllbech. Give me something._

_Anyway, albatross says hi. Okay, he doesn’t say hi. We haven’t told him I'm talking to you. We’re trying not to aggravate him, and telling him would definitely do that. I’ve learned a lot of different synonyms for_ reckless _while he’s been stuck in the hospital. He mainly uses them to talk about you. He blames you, by the way. Have fun with that!_

_-LoneStar_

He blamed me? Of all the-

Not the time for that.

Not much time at all, actually. Marburg’s villa was all the way in Genoa.

_Again,_ I typed. _I’m not in Rome. I wouldn’t know anything about current Roman events either, but if I had to guess, I’d postulate that your professor may or may not have been as Al-Samad as he seemed. But I’m sure G22 already knows this. What you might not know_

Keeping info from them wouldn’t do me any good. Telling them wouldn’t get me any more deader than I already was.

_What you might not know is_ why _he was killed. I really couldn’t speculate. I did hear, though, that he had a meeting with an American novelist right before he died. A guy named Fausto Pace was in Rome for a book signing that week. Funny coincidence._

_Oh, and one last note. If Albatross wants to complain about me, he can do it to my face. And, if possible, he can bring more snack cakes along with him._

I sent it and shut the laptop down. Its security would stop Madison from logging in.

If she ran and told the cops the truth, of course, the point was moot.

I couldn’t watch her all the time. And this run to Marburg’s villa had to be done.

She’d been expecting me to leave at dawn, like I’d said I would. I left her a note so she wouldn’t panic.

 

\--------------------------------

Thursday, 03/13, 02:14

Marburg’s Villa

Outside Genoa, Italy

\--------------------------------

“Thorton,” Marburg said.

My two lovely escorts shoved me into the leather desk chair opposite Marburg. One took yet another opportunity to wave Yulian’s pistol in my face.

“My apologizes for relieving you of your weapons,” Marburg said, stopping the guard with a single raised hand. “But I’m sure you understand.”

“It’s okay. I’ll get them back.”

Hopefully.

“Of course,” he said. “So – I have an aggressive schedule over the next few days. Let’s get to the point. Tell me everything you’ve discovered about our Rome operation.”

“I was actually hoping we could do that the other way around.”

He pressed his fingertips together.

_“Specifics,_ please.”

“Not much beyond the link to Al-Samad, I guess. And perhaps some fascination with gelato…now, when you say specifics, do you mean flavors, or…?”

Aw, he almost looked disappointed in me.

“You like to play games, Thorton. I’ll miss that about you.”

“ ‘Miss’ me? What, are we done?”

“I had hoped you would be willing to cooperate. But I haven’t provided the right incentive.”

I was about to suggest he try ice cream when the sound of a live electric current cracked behind me. Marburg nodded once at a guard. The desk spilt into two images, then four, except it wasn’t the desk, was it? It was the chandelier in swimming double images brightness blurried by tears. I couldn’t move. There was carpet on my face. A year. Two years. Forever it seemed like it spent pain fusing everything together until I couldn’t even feel if I had a throat to be breathing with because it was all one slagged mess.

The chandelier shivered back into one shape. I could feel my arms again. “ _That_ ,” said the pair of dress shoes on the carpet beside my head, “was 10,000 volts.”

I worked up enough energy to cough in response.

Marburg used the tip of a shoe to nudge my head over until I was looking up at him. I don’t think I seemed that intimidating. I tried, though.

The guard with Yulian’s pistol waved a bulky off-brand stun gun.

Didn’t even spring for a fucking TASER.

“Beat Mr. Thorton,” Marburg said, deciding to go old school on me all of a sudden, “until he can no longer stand, but leave him able to speak.”

Boy, did I have news for him. _  
_

Stun Gun twirled the thing around his finger like he was some kind of cowboy. The other guy tapped his foot while Marburg walked out. Gave me four, maybe five seconds to sit on the sweet, soft ground and not move.

_Click_ , went the door.

I smiled up at the guards. They glared.

“Look, I know what he told you-” I said.

Stun Gun’s foot swung at my stomach. I rolled back and hit the center beam under Marburg’s desk. Stun Gun didn’t miss a beat, fell forward and put all the force from his missed kick into shoving the desk back.

“Hey, now-” I said.

He kicked again without looking, a badly aimed strike that came nowhere near me. I stomped on his foot as best I could once it landed back on the carpet.

Across the room, the second guard leaned over, hands on his knees, and shook his head at me.

“Any time you feel like helping, Hartford,” said Stun Gun.

Hartford sighed again. He hiked up the side of his slacks and uncovered a tiny little concealed pistol.

“Easy way or the hard way, Thorton,” he said.

“He did say _able to speak,_ right?" I inquired. "You can’t kill me, so…think I’ll stay put.”

Stun Gun gave the dense wooden desk another shove.

“I _can_ shoot your shins out,” Hartford said.

The scar tissue from Saudi Arabia seized up at the possibility.

“Counterpoint-”

“Fuck this,” Stun Gun interrupted. He dropped into a crouch and reached a hand out towards my foot.

Bad choice.

“Dan-” Hartford shouted.

Dan didn’t stand a chance. I didn’t exactly have the space to do anything serious, but judging from the cracking sounds his face made when my foot connected with it, I’d busted up at least part of his nose.

He started howling and cradling his jaw. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Might have done in a couple of teeth, too. Lucky me.

I wiped the blood off my boot on Marburg’s carpet. Hope he had fun cleaning that out. And – oh, lookie there. Dan’s stun gun. He’d gone and dropped it.

Hartford noticed it a split second after I did. He was too far away, but he darted for it anyway. When Dan’s howling turned into strangled groans, he stopped.

I gave Dan a couple more seconds of stun gun anyway. Just in case.

“Ten thousand dollars,” I said, over Dan’s uneven, shaky breathing. “and you tell Marburg I knocked you both out and got away.”

“Or I call for backup, and Marburg makes sure you never see sunlight again.”

“I’ll give you one for free: Marburg can’t touch me. Why-” I said, going out on a bit of a limb, but what the heck- “do you think you had orders not to shoot me on site when I showed up?”

Dan moved again. I stunned him again.

“These things can kill, you know,” I said, giving the stun gun a wiggle. “What’s it gonna be?”

“You don’t have 10k.”

“No, but I can get it wired to you.”

“Hell, no.”

“Then I-”

“No,” Hartford said again. “No, this was a bad idea. This is a bad idea. This is over.”

He dipped a hand into this jacket, going probably for a radio and _that_ would be the bad idea, thanks.

“Hang on, hang on. I have something better than 10k.”

“I doubt it,” he said, but his hand stopped all the same.

“See that?”

Yulian’s pistol hung in the holster on the other side of Dan’s torso. I pointed towards it.

“The pistol?”

“Don’t sound so insulted,” I said. “What are good pistols these days, on the black market? Ten, twenty thousand bucks? And a _suppressor?_ Come on.”

I felt a bit like a failing salesman. Hartford continued to look unimpressed.

“And that’s _before_ this embassy business. They start locking down illegal trade, prices are only gonna go up.”

“You know I can just take it, right?” he said, the smartass.

“I can shoot you with it before you get through another step. And yeah, _someone_ will get it, but it won’t be you.”

“Hm,” he said.

“Look. It’s sturdy, great stability, I mean, irony points – it’s one of Halbech’s newer-”

Hartford cut me off sharply. “Who?” he said.

“Halbech? Major weapons dev? Into missiles these days. Signs your paychecks, though probably doesn’t pay you nearly enough to shoot me, right?”

“I know who the fuck Halbech is. Where’d _you_ get the pistol from?”

In-teresting.

“I bought it. Legitimately. No shady business here. In fact-”

“Shut up,” he said. He tugged a radio free from his jacket.

“Uh-” I said.

“This is Hartford,” he announced loudly to the entirety of Marburg’s radio network. “We have an intruder. Stunned Dan and I and went out the window. Think he’s heading for the woods. All units on Zone 3 and 4. I’m taking Dan to infirmary. Hartford out.”

He tucked the radio back into his jacket. “I’ll take the pistol. Now fuck off,” he said, jabbing a thumb towards the door.

“Can I ask why, first?”

He had the pistol out of the ankle holster and pointed at my forehead before I finished asking.

“Even if I miss, they'll hear the shot, and they _will_ come running. Get out of my life before you get me killed, too.”

“Too?”

I covered my ears too late for my hearing. The shot landed in the bookcase behind me, several chunks of powdered paper flying free.

_Two minutes,_ Hartford mouthed.

He kept the minipistol trained on me until I back away from Yulian – Dan, and found my way to the door.

_Oh,_ he said, the sound quiet under the ringing. _Here._

He tossed a small square at me. My PDA.

“You’ll need it,” he said.

I _needed_ to stay here and figure out what was going on.

I also needed to not die today.

I said a silent goodbye to my pistol as I left.

 

It took a good twenty seconds before I realized my PDA was vibrating. The image of Mina fuzzed in and out for a moment before stabilizing.

“Mina, do you read me?” I said.

“I’m here, Mike. Are you inside?”

“Yeah, but they’ve got me locked in – can you override the security systems?”

“No, I can’t patch through to security. I’m sorry, Mike.”

“Wouldn’t Madison know the codes?”

“It…” Mina reflected. “depends. On who you want to help you out, Mike. I can patch Madison through, or I can stay on the line. Just say the word.”

“Madison’s been here before, Mina – she has firsthand knowledge of the villa.”

“All right, Mike. It’s your call,” she said quickly. “I’ll transmit the frequency for her to use.”

The screen blurred again, then shut off. The phone made clicking noises as it connected.

The hallways remained clear. Mostly clear. Marburg had old marble statues in about a million recesses. They were watching me.

_One minute._

Finally the screen came back on, Madison’s face bisected by the edge of the frame.

“How does this thing work?” she mumbled to herself, fighting through a yawn. “She said – okay, I think I’ve got it.”

“Good morning, Madison.” I said. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said. “Mike, I – I’m not really sure how much I can help.”

“You know this villa better than me, just call out if there’s something I should know – like cameras, or explosives, or armed guards…”

“Okay.”

“All right, then. Let’s go.”

 

“Marburg’s gallery is ahead,” Madison said.

“What’s through the side door?”

“His office.”

Then what was the room before? Office Jr? This place was more confusing than the Greybox. All carpet and columns and way too much space for one person. I’d been in warehouses smaller than this.

But it was worth a look.

Problem being the guard lurking around the corner, at the entrance to Marburg's gallery.

I smoothed my shirt out and ran my fingers through my hair. _Professional. Think like a VCI._ Deus Vult. Whoever these people were.

I straightened up and walked across the hallway.

“HEY!” the guard shouted, and started running.

“It’s okay, Hartford sent me!” I called, and dipped behind the corner.

He came running around. I rammed an elbow into his stomach. When he doubled over, I jabbed my other elbow into his back. He dropped, too stunned to do anything about the headlock I hooked around his neck before it was too late.

“Mike?” Madison asked.

He pushed his feet against the carpet on the floor, spasmed twice. Choked out a word in garbled Italian. I couldn’t understand what it was. I had about ten seconds or so after letting him go before he’d be back up. Ten seconds to find out if he had a knife. I found it in eight, strapped to his belt in a leather sheath with thick, rough stitching. I stashed his body in a recess behind the base of a large chariot statue.

No cameras. Amateur hour.

“Madison,” I said. “Do you know Marburg’s door code, by any chance?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Eleven twenty-seven.”

“Huh. Isn’t that Thanksgiving this year?”

“I don’t know. Mike, I heard something weird.”

“Weird how?” I asked, careful to sound calm. If the safehouse was compromised, she was dead.

“That guard?” she asked.

“Oh,” I said. “So on my end then.”

“The sound? Yeah.”

She wouldn’t like it.

“Probably nothing,” I lied. “Interference. 1127, you said?”

“I did.”

“Good news,” I said, punching it in and receiving a friendly _beep._ “We’re in.”

 

“The phone on the desk is flashing,” I remarked.

“Marburg’s private line,” she explained. “You should be able to listen in, just be careful when you hit the speaker button.”

“Devious,” I said.

It was a very pretty desk. Small, and spindly. Not half as useful as the last one, but such is life. I sat on the arm of yet another leather chair, and picked the phone up, being very careful when I hit the speaker button as requested.

_“Do I proceed?”_ Marburg asked.

_“It depends,”_ someone else rumbled. _“Is everything in place?”_

_“Almost,”_ Marburg reassured him. _“There’s a few last things that need to be taken care of, but I don’t anticipate any problems.”_

_“I hope not,”_ mysterious villain number 2 said, in a way that made it quite clear it should be _Marburg_ who hoped there were no more problems. _“Call me when you have something more.”_

Click.

If I had to bet money, I’d guess that was Halbech business. Which meant that was _probably_ one Henry Leland.

“Nice to meet you,” I told the silent phone line.

“What?” Madison said.

“One of the guys who wants me dead. I think.”

“Oh. Is that what Marburg meant by _do I proceed?”_

“Doubt it. Doesn’t sound like he’s said anything about me.”

Don’t anticipate any problems. Ha. And this coming from a guy who left his cellphone in the top left drawer. Mine now.

Marburg had the good sense not to leave any papers out on his desk. He had a little notebook on his desk, with scribbles in Italian. Mine, too.

He also had a really nice gel pen, which I took as well, because there wasn’t much else and the situation was a little disappointing. I had hoped for slightly better than a crappy flip phone and a notebook. There was better, too, somewhere in the villa. However, there were also who knew how many dozens of VCI/Deus Vult guys. I had one of me, and a borrowed hunting knife.

Hm. I could do _one_ last thing.

“Madison,” I said. “How do I find the call logs on this thing?”

“Press the button that looks like a book.”

I flipped through Marburg’s notes until I found an empty page. Not sure what could be done with any of the numbers on his phone, but they had to be good for something. I clicked his pen-

A tingling shock shot up and down my arm. My earpiece shrieked and made several loud popping noises. I dropped Marburg’s pen, and it rolled innocently away.

That was unpleasant.

If the _last_ time I’d had one of those used on me was any indication, I’d need to do major work on my earpiece yet a-fucking-gain.

And it probably would have caused no small degree of alarm on Madison’s side of things.

Maybe the worse part was the damn pen wasn’t even a pen. No ink. Nothing. I took pictures of the numbers on my phone.

The balcony in the back of his office was only one story off the ground, so it was easy enough to hop the rail, dangle for a second, and land safely on the ground. A quick run through a garden full of topiaries later, I was clear, safe in the dark, on my way far away from the people still combing the forest.

 

\--------------------------------

Thursday, 03/13, 08:09

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome

\--------------------------------

 

 

Madison was crying when I walked back in the door, hunched over on the sofa holding her new replacement phone in her hands. She had a single earbud in. Mina was on the television, making soothing sounds.

“Mike,” she said, pausing and looking up. “Your phone is off.”

_“I didn’t know,”_ Maison whispered. _“But they…”_

“Long story,” I explained. “I’ll grab my laptop.”

 

_> > The hell happened here?_

Mina took her time in responding. I could see her typing on the television. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

_> > Second question: you’re talking to Madison now?_

_> > Third question: you’re *okay* with talking to Madison now?_

Her eyes flicked up to her camera.

“Can you give me a minute?” she said.

Madison had some kind of audio playing on her phone. She rewound whatever it was she was listening to, and put it on again.

_> Okay, so you dont think its strange? she was using the workstation that *parker* was?_

_> > What happened here?_

_> what happened is i finished that background check. st james got a job rec from an art gallery owner in NH. but there's no mention of a "saint james" family tied to the gallery owner_

_> in fact, the trail of “saint james” stops in NH entirely. no paper trail, no certificate of name change, or anything else to confirm her identity_

_> > so?_

_> come on. thats not something you see in a civilian._

_> > What I *see* is Madison sobbing on my couch with an audio file on repeat. _

_> > What. Happened._

_> that’s between she and i, mike. suffice to say that just because *you* trust her, doesn’t mean I do_

“It’s _not_ suffice to say,” I said. “Madison – can I see that?”

She blinked away another tear.

“Of course,” she said.

“Mike-” Mina warned.

“With all that’s going on, you and me are gonna start keeping secrets? No. Thanks, Madison.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, which should have been my first warning.

The second should have been my own voice on the recording. I didn’t recognize myself, though. Not even two weeks ago and I couldn’t recognize myself. The guy on the recording sounded bad. He was coughing, alarmed, panicked.

_“Alb- Mi-”_ he said, in between heavy, wracking coughs.

_“Sir! Can you hear me?!”_ said another muffled voice. _“You’re gonna be fine. We’ll get you out of here. We’re evac-”_  

He was interrupted by machine pistol fire.

I yanked the earbud out, flung it away on the sofa. On the TV, Mina shook her head.

“I said I’d try and pull the embassy recordings,” she said impassively.

“Yeah,” I said, swallowing hard. “Yeah, you did.”

“I’m so sorry,” Madison repeated.

“Wait…” I realized. “You-”

Madison had been listening to that. She’d heard the embassy, and there was – not just me. She knew about Surkov. About Albatross. About…

“I told her everything,” Mina said. “If she’s going to help us effectively, she needs to know.”

“Everything?”

The embassy. The yacht. Sis, almost shooting Sis. Halbech – the missiles.

“All of it?” I repeated.

“She knows everything you know. I noticed there was a lot that you didn’t see fit to tell her.”

How much did Mina have recordings of? The missiles in Saudi – Shaheed twisting around words but he was right, wasn’t he? Surkov _you used to work for them too._ Haha – maybe she had stuff from the Greybox. Evidence of the program needs to be eliminated. Sean. HA! Sean. Halbech. And Halbech missiles. In the blue sky, trailing overhead.

Madison rested a hand on my shoulder. “Mike?” she asked.

“Why?” I asked Mina.

“She needs to know the risks,” she said, and then added, in almost perfect Arabic, _“I needed to know if I could trust her.”_

_“And that’s how you did it?”_

“Uh…” Madison said.

_“And what if she is?”_   I added. _“What if she fucking is, Mina? What then?”_

_“So you agree with me?”_

_“This isn’t ABOUT that. This is about you.”_

_“Me?”_ She seemed like she was about to laugh. _“Me, Michael? How?”_

_“You had no right.”_

_“I had every right,”_   she declared, _“Because this isn’t about me, and it’s certainly not about you. This is something bigger than both of us. Why do I have to keep reminding you?”_

“If this is about me,” Madison said hesitantly, “Then…I did ask Mina to tell me. I wanted to know.”

_“She wanted to help.”_

_“And that makes it right?”_ I asked, hating the quiet venom that was there.

_“Yes,”_   she said. _“It does. And do I need remind you – you brought her into this.”_

_“I didn’t have a choice, she was on the goddamn phone-”_

_“We always have a choice, Michael.”_

I was too angry to think straight in another language. Almost couldn’t handle English.

“Then what was I supposed to fucking do,” I hissed. “Tell me – what was I supposed to do. Leave her?”

_“Honestly, Michael?”_ she said, _“I don’t know. Maybe. But it would have been better that what you’re doing to her. At least now she knows the risks.”_

She couldn’t go back to life as it was before. Fuck, if anyone ever found out what she did know – I mean, how well did I know G22? They might kill her. Alpha Protocol sure as hell would. Halbech would. If she was lucky. And they were so much better than that. Tear her apart in the media first. Her family, her friends. There was no understanding that risk. Ever. Not even if you were living it. Don’t think about it. Because in our case it wasn’t so much a risk as an inevitability, was it? This didn’t end well. It never did.

_“I understand if you disagree,”_   Mina said. _“But it’s done.”_

“No shit,” I said.

The silence grew awkward very quickly.

“What did you find at the villa?” Madison finally asked.

“Let’s go get some food,” I said.

“Some – why?” Madison said. “Don’t we have to-”

“Nah,” I said. “Let’s just go. I’ve got the rental bike for a week, and its nice outside.”

“We need to debrief,” Mina said. “We don’t have a lot of time-”

“You know how to ride?” I asked Madison.

“My father never let me learn.”

“Well, you can hang on, then. We’ll be fine.”

“Mike-” Mina warned.

“I can’t do this right now. You coming, Madison? I’m buying.”

“I…” she said. She glanced over her shoulder, back at Mina, whose eyes were tight and narrowed. She was frowning intensely at me.

“Anywhere you want,” I offered.

“Are you armed?”

It was a strange question. I guess it was justified. I took the stun gun out of my pocket and dropped it on the floor. I tossed Marburg’s pen over onto the living room table.

“Nope,” I said.

“Alright,” she said. “Although I don’t know what’s open this early in the morning.”

“We’ll find something,” I assured her. “Catch up with you later, Mina.”

She shook her head, and disconnected abruptly.

“Shall we?”

“Sure, Mike,” Madison said.

 

Friday

_Madison is anti-treehouse. How can someone be anti-treehouse?  
_

 

Saturday

_Okay, logs. Do them. My head is killing me.  
_

_We took Marburg’s phone apart today. Took a while to figure out how to rip GPS data from it – took a long while before that to figure out if his phone would even have it. But it did. One small piece of luck._

_I taught Madison how to comb through it.  Here’s what we found – the man actually does love gelato. So I was dead on about that. He goes pretty frequently to a small grocery store on the outskirts of Rome. He has to pass about a dozen markets to get there. Who's the American now, huh? He also goes to what Madison has informed me is a pretty upscale gay bar in the center of the city._

_More relevant - right before he left for Genoa, he went to two very odd places._

_One, a ruins outside of Carsulae – a ruin that is currently closed for renovations right now. Which, also according to Madison, is a thing that people do. Renovate ruins. Feels like something magical is being taken from the universe. Do they renovate them to make ruins look more ruined, or less?  
_

_Anyway, the second place is a warehouse in the Aprilla district, on the outskirts of Rome. That one’s odd because he had to go way out of his way to get there. I guess he could have been storing things that he wanted to bring with him, but I doubt it._

_I’m gonna hit the warehouse before he comes back. He might be back already, but he might not be, so the sooner the better._

_I should talk to Mina, but...  
_

_I don't know. I don't have an excuse. I should, and I won't. Not until I have to._

_She's right, though. It's done. Should just move on from it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/arts-and-leisure/2015-06-08/fotografia-italiana-110402.php?uuid=ABZbcQuD  
> jic anyones interested in title, because this one i dont think you can google easily.


	33. The Soothsayer's Recompense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8/5 EDIT: yeah so...i dont know how, but i completely forgot to add the end of the last chapter when i uploaded it? i dont know how i missed that. i hope it didnt throw anyone for a loop, just suddenly ending up at Carsulae for no reason.
> 
> ALSO. I changed the ingame date of this by two days. needed some time for something else

“So you’re saying you _don’t_ sell individual units,” I asked the manager for, I think, the seventh time?

Madison stifled a laugh and marked another notch on the paper. Two more and I won.

He’d started cursing by ask number five. Nevertheless, he was hanging in there.

_“No,”_ he growled.

“So,” I said, “let me get this straight. You do _not_ sell, or, y’know, rent, at all-”

“NO!” he said.

“Not even-”

_Click._

Madison shook her head, and held up the paper with 6 tally marks.

“That counts!” I said.

"Sorry, no can do."

“Come on!”

“You got two words into the seventh ask,” she said.

“Right, which means-”

“ENOUGH,” Mina said. The force of her voice made the speakers on the PDA crackle. “Enough, you two. Can we focus?”

“Did I win?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then-”

“We can focus,” Madison broke in, grabbing the PDA from the coffee table. “Run it by us again?”

She cleared her throat. “As I was _saying,_ ” she said, “the storage facility is a few blocks away from a police station. Try to be quiet unless absolutely necessary.”

“When necessary,” I said. “Got it.”

I couldn’t see the disapproving glare, but I could feel it in the way she went clipped and precise with her words.

“If there’s any trouble, the authorities will respond quickly.”

“Quickly? That’d be a first.”

_“Mike.”_

“Stay quiet, don’t get into trouble. Got it. We’re busting into a third-rate storage facility, not storming the Greybox. I can handle it.”

“Mike,” Madison asked. “You’re a spy, right?”

“Nic-nid,” I said.

“What?”

“He’s getting cute,” Mina explained, with additional precision and clipping. “What he means to say is _no comment.”_

“Okay?” Madison said. “I just mean…have you ever, I don’t know. Have you ever broken in someplace before?”

I gave the couch a good ol' pat before I got up.

_“That,”_ I said, “is a story for another day. Why? Do you want me to teach you how to pick a lock?”

“No, I just…be careful.”

“That’s not his strong suit,” Mina interjected on my behalf.

“I'm working on it,” I said. “And while you two examine my flaws, I’m going to go check out this-”

“Hang on,” Mina interrupted, somehow gaining an additional layer of tension. “I… hang on.”

The sudden sound of nothing emitted from the PDA.

“Nicnid?” Madison asked again.

“N-C-N-D. It stands for-”

“-neither confirm nor deny? Mike, why do you say it like that?”

“You know about that phrase?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

I started to say no. But I wasn’t actually sure about that. I don’t think I’d ever had any reason to think about it before.

“Mike,” Mina announced, in the purposeful and measured way that signaled we were about to receive some bad fucking news. “We might have some complications. I’m not sure.”

“Might?”

“I just intercepted an Al-Samad transmission.”

Well, fuck.

“Gimme the sitrep.”

“Take it with a grain of salt, Mike. The sender IP checks out as coming from an area where Al-Samad have been alleged to operate…and the codes used are those seen in prior Al-Samad missives bounced around Europe.”

“But?”

“What’s odd,” she said slowly, “is that I’ve never seen Al-Samad communicate to an email distribution list this large.”

“Why not?” Madison asked.

“Their cells never talk to each other. It minimizes what information gets leaked should someone be interrogated and cave in.”

“Never?”

“Rarely enough,” I said, “that this is unusual. Mina, what’s the transmission say?”

“ ‘We meet at the ruins – time code Algol. A-L-G-O-L.’ It looks like they’re meeting to distribute weapons, and discuss the agenda for the ‘next phase’.”

“Ruins?” I noticed.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“There are a _lot_ of ruins in Rome, though.” Ruins that weren’t, say, Carsulae.

“Like I said, Mike. Take it with a grain of salt.”

“Algol’s a star, if that matters,” Madison said.

“You into astronomy?”

“No,” she said. She pushed her hairband further back up. “The _USS Algol_ was an attack cargo ship that the scientology guy served on.”

“So…not astronomy. Military history?”

“Trivia night,” she explained.

Trivia night. Well. That made more sense. Because she was a regular civilian, not a nameless spook out to kill me in my sleep.

“If you’re going to go check it out, Mike,” Mina suggested, “you should do it soon. We don’t know when Marburg will be back.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ll swing by on the way to the storage facility, see if there’s anything worth looking into.”

“Let me know when you get there.”

“Sure thing.”

“Alright,” she said, and disconnected.

“I’d better go,” I said.

Madison tossed me the PDA. “I’ll see you soon.”

 

\------------------------ 

08:14. 3/18

Roman Ruins

Near Carsulae, Italy

\------------------------ 

The tall man in a red Al-Samad mask flipped open the wooden trap door and slid down the ladder. The lid fell shut behind him. It kicked up a small puff of dust and dirt.

“We have a problem,” I said.

Several cases of problems, to be exact. C4 and Semtex and a bucketload of Samael .66 gauge shotguns. The ruins had looked empty, at first. A collection of half crumbled buildings tightly clumped together, all surrounding a large, square skeletal column structure in the center. Looked like an old temple, of sorts.  Everything silent but for the wind. It had looked empty, then I’d caught a flash of red in the corner of my eye. I’d walked over here, and lo and behold.

Al-Samad stockpile.

And a trap door.

I sent a quick picture of the scene to Mina.

“You think checking this place out is going to take more than an hour?” I asked.

Plenty of detonators, too. Someone finally looking to make my job easy.

“Why?” she asked.

“Don’t need these munitions finding their way into Rome. Better destroy them while I’m here.”

“Mike?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t blow up the ruins.”

“Come on, they’re already doing renovations. Are a few extra walls going to matter?”

_“Don’t_ blow up the ruins.”

“I won’t. Just the weapons.”

Too bad Al-Samad didn’t have any good pistols in the stockpile. Could have used a new one. There were some things that a gold-plated assault rifle couldn’t do.

Mina sighed. “I’d set it for two,” she said.

“Two it is. Keep track for me.”

“Starting?”

“Right about… _now.”_

I hid the chunk of C4 deep within the disorganized wooden crate of shotguns. Unless someone was keen on cleaning, we’d be fine.

Now, for the...vertical ten foot descent down a ladder that ended right above a carved stone staircase. It, too, led further underground.

“Here goes,” I said.

Into the dark. Chasing Al-Samad.

“Is everything alright?” Mina asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“You haven’t moved,” she said.

“No, I haven’t.”

“You only have one hundred and eighteen minutes left.”

“That many?”

“Michael. _Go.”_

“I don’t like caves,” I said.

“What?”

Make me say it again, huh?

“I don’t-” I repeated.

“-no, I heard you. That’s not a cave, though.”

“The picture didn’t do it justice, then.”

“No, it’s…well, if it’s beneath the bath, it’s probably where they kept the fires – to heat up bath water.”

“So…you majored in architecture?”

“No, ancient Roman plumbing. With a _minor_ in architecture.”

“Reassuring.”

“One hundred and seventeen, Michael.”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

The air under the ground was cold and clammy. Sun from outside filtered in for several feet, before being replaced by electric lights. It could have been worse. For example, there could have been more weapons, instead of dust and pebbles and boot tracks all over the layer of dirt on the ground.

“You’re afraid of caves _and_ trains,” Mina mused. “I should introduce you to the subway.”

“We’ve met. I’m not a fan.”

It was as quiet here as it had been outside. Where were Al-Samad?

“I can imagine,” she said.

The space constricted the further it went along. By the bottom of the stairs, it’d become more of a tunnel, a few worn out clay brick arches holding back the weight of the buildings outside, on top of the ground, far above us. Pressing down.

“Can we talk about something else?” I asked.

“Sure. How about-”

The tunnel made a sharp curve. I trotted around it and almost tripped over a skeleton.

An old, old, crumbly skeleton. Intact. Sitting up against a large clay pot.

Min’s voice fizzled.

“Your signal’s breaking up a little, Mike.”

“Must be the ghosts down here,” I said, calmly. Very calm. About the skull staring me down. Sitting in the shadow that the clay pot cast.

“Are you in the catacombs?” her intermittent signal asked.

The…catacombs. The catacombs?

“Yeah,” I said. I sounded casual. That was good. “But not for much longer. Don’t want to pick up any curses.”

She laughed. I made my feet move. The skeleton did not follow. How would I know if it was following or not? I looked back. Nope, it was still sitting against the pot. I kept my eye on it anyway, until the tunnel made another bend.

“About those catacombs…” I started.

Sunlight. Beautiful, full, bright sunlight, falling down a long staircase going upwards.

“About?”

“It can wait.”

The buildings were far more intact in this part of the ruins, and much closer together. There were small courtyards in-between the buildings, with patches of partitioned grass that must have been impressive gardens at some point in time. Now, though, they were dead and scraggly and covered in broken pieces of columns.

“Hope the world doesn’t end up like this if Halbech fucks it up.”

“You and me both,” Mina agreed. “Any sign of Al-Samad?”

“Not yet. I’m going to start in the center and work my way out.”

I doubted they'd stash anything in the large temple structure – if anyone was coming looking, that’s where they’d go – but it was as good a starting place as anywhere.

Of course, if I’d known how big the temple was, I might have reconsidered the assumption. The floor of the temple wasn’t at ground level – it was sunken in, some ten feet. Bamboo scaffolding surrounded all sides of the pit that the temple rose from, rickety scaffolding that shook when I climbed down it. Carved stone reliefs were etched into the massive bases of load-bearing columns. Some reliefs were covered in warning posters and renovation schedules. Most were uncovered. And one stayed hidden behind some crates, a small satellite dish, and several generators.

The dish was pointed at a ragged hole in the sloped stone roof of the ruin.

“I think I’ve found the source of the transmissions.”

“Can you access it?”

A closed laptop sat on a crate, connected to the satellite by a mess of wires.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I opened it.

A password entry screen.

My old foe.

“This might take a while,” I said.

“Try the master password?”

“The…?”

“We used it at the airport. In Saudi Arabia.”

Ah. That.

“You _do_ remember it, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, I got it.”

I put it in.

The computer rejected it.

Somehow, it felt personal.

“No go,” I reported.

“Hm.”

Faced with the prospect of working on this computer for who knows how long, I began to realize how exposed it was. Should any Al-Samad come wandering back in, that is. They had entry points on all four side of the temple. The columns only offered slight cover.

I sat back against the crates, and pulled the computer on to my lap. If I had to have zero cover, at least I could see them coming.

“Try-”

“Mina, I know how to hack a computer.”

“I was _going_ to say, try this password one of our agents extracted from an Al-Samad cell member only yesterday, but go ahead. Dazzle me with your hacking ability.”

“Uh…” I said. “You know, so long as you already have a password…”

“I thought you might be interested. Sending it to your PDA now.”

It, too, failed to work.

“Give me a time check on those detonators,” I said.

“Eighty-six minutes.”

Minus the fifteen or so it would take to get clear of the ruins. Twenty, to give us a buffer. So, more like an hour left.

I ran a finger over the keys in home row.

_A-L-G-O-L,_ I tried.

Nope.

_A-L-G-O-L-1_

Not that, either.

Could be anything. I could run through the basic passwords first, then…? Well, _something_ had to work. Important dates in Al-Samad’s history? Coordinates? The names of people?

Dates.

_1-1-2-7-_

I paused on the enter key. A four-digit password didn’t even make sense. Let alone them using Marburg’s door code.

Let alone them smuggling explosives into a city after someone who may or may not have been the leader of their cell was murdered following a meeting with a guy who was writing about corporate involvement in the middle east. That didn't make sense either, but there you had it.

The password had to be _something._ Why not that? Or…

_A-L-G-O-L-1-1-2-7-_

The laptop accepted the password with a short chiming noise.

“Okay,” I said. “Not sure what that means, but Mina? I did figure out the password.”

“Not sure what _what_ means?”

It could have been coincidence.

“I’ll explain it later. For now…”

Linking the PDA to the laptop was easy enough, with the password out of the way.

“Here,” I said.

“Got it. Hang tight.”

1127\. The email had talked about a time code. Maybe that’s what it was. The time of the meeting. That would explain why no one was here yet.

11:27 was a hell of a precise time for a meeting, though. And the email had said that _algol_ was the time code.

So it was a date. An important one. One that both Marburg and Al-Samad had coincidentally picked for their passwords.

Alternatively…what? What was the alternative, there? Marburg was in cahoots with Al-Samad and kindly offered to set up their laptop for them?

The GPS data from his phone did place him here.

His GPS data did place him here.

“I’ve got a link,” Mina said, “to all the transmissions to this station, but I’ll need some time to trace the signal’s origin.”

“So…I just stand here and wait?”

“Now you know how _I_ feel – just make sure nothing interferes with the station until I’ve finished the trace, then…”

“Then?”

She didn’t say anything.

“What then?”

Fast-paced typing.

“We’ve got trouble, don’t we,” I said.

The typing halted. “Protect the trace, Mike,” she stressed. “If we lose it now…”

“Don’t worry, they’re not getting anywhere near it.”

I unslung the rifle from my back. Funny – came from the last Al-Samad guy I had to tangle with.

The last Al-Samad guy I had to deal with…on a mission to find Halbech weapons.

Halbech and Al-Samad. And the VCI.

Figure it out later. Right now-

Ringing, tinny alarm sounding from somewhere in one of the buildings near the temple.

Right now, protect the trace.

 

I knocked out a pole on the scaffolding while the first two were climbing down. The entire structure collapsed inward. One landed badly and snapped his neck. I shot the other.

A third appeared on the top of the northern scaffolding. He pulled out a pistol, and lost the hand. I shifted my aim, and he dropped this time.

“Hold on, Mike,” Mina said. “I almost have it.”

Another one crouched over the body. My first two shots glanced off his helmet. The last few went through it.

“Now I know how the soldiers at the Alamo felt,” I said.

Then things fell apart.

The first round took out the head of a charioteer on one of the reliefs. The second nearly hit my own head. An Al-Samad red mask jumped from a scaffolding to the east, rose with a Samael submachine gun in his hand. I took a step backwards and the third sniper round blew past my eyes. Someone hooked their arms under mine. I dropped my rifle and jammed an elbow backwards into their side. I hit a rib. The pain paralyzed my arm. He shouted, and let go. I dove for the gun, the fourth sniper round tunneled over my head, I grabbed the rifle and came up shooting in an arc. The Al-Samad behind me dropped, another one falling off a scaffolding, clutching a scoped rifle. My own rifle was wrenched free from my hands. The red mask swung the stock back towards my face. I didn’t duck in time. The dirt tasted like milk. He yanked me off the ground. I couldn’tfocus. The world spun.

_“Mike, you need to protect the trace!”_ Mina yelled in my ear. _“We- shit-”_

The red mask yanked my earbud free. He flung it away. The PDA went with it.

Several more people joined him. Or…was it several? They seemed faint.

He pushed me away. The ground moved. I stumbled, and fell.

He leveled a pistol at my chest.

Two identical double image Al-Samad approached the laptop.

He pulled the trigger.

I thought I might be dying at first, because everything started dimming, but the tranq dart sticking out of my skin was probably not that. With a blue and silver tail, like from the ones at the greybox. Westridge’s mystery…the thing that…I…

Someone grabbed my arm. They said something. I couldn’t stay awake.

 

 

I woke up next to a crate of weapons. Which was strange, because I was pretty sure I’d fallen asleep in the safehouse. The barrel of a shotgun was smooshed against my cheek. It stuck out through the wooden slats of a large crate. The safehouse didn’t have one of those last time I checked.

A man cursed loudly in Italian. Twenty feet away, he was standing over a laptop on a stack of metal crates. He smacked the side of the monitor, and glared up at a satellite.

The safehouse absolutely didn’t have-

Oh, _fuck._

Al-Samad. The ruins. The satellite uplink-

The _detonator._

The detonator that was hidden in the crate behind me.

I jerked forward, and the handcuffs around my wrists dug in.

Correction. The detonator was hidden in the crate I appeared to be handcuffed to.

Several al-Samad members in an eclectic collection of what looked like surplus camo uniforms milled around, checking the boxes stacked throughout the ruin, checking the satellite, inspecting the carvings. One glanced up at me.

_“Dante!”_   he shouted, and went back to breaking down and reassembling another Samael shotgun.

How much time did we – _I_ have? Help to know how long the tranq usually took to wear off. Al-Samad had to bring all this stuff from the building, through the catacombs, and to here. Couldn't be much left.

_“So…”_ a voice behind me said in Italian. _“A spy.”_

He sat on the closed top of the crate. The red mask. He had my rifle in one hand, my PDA in another.

_“You’re damn right,”_ I said, and mentally crossed my fingers. _“Marburg sent me.”_

“Marburg _sent you.”_ He sat my rifle down on the top of the crate.

_“Yeah. To figure out what was wrong with your satellite.”_

The man by the laptop bopped the side of the screen again.

_“I…see you’ve noticed the problem.”_

_“Mm,”_ he said. He tapped my PDA against his knee. _“I don’t think I believe you.”_

_“ ‘Meet at the ruins at time code Algol? Ring a bell?’ ”_

_“We received that transmission, yes,”_   he said.

Received.

They didn’t send it?

_“Well,”_   I said. _“I sent it. Deus Vult needed to meet.”_

He kept tapping the PDA.

_“Yet you attacked our men.”_

_“Yeah, well. You know how it is,”_ I said, while I scrambled to find a plausible excuse for that one.

He nodded thoughtfully, and spared me the trouble. _“Yes,”_ he said.

Ah…sure. So long as one of us knew what that meant, I’d take it.

_“I do have a small concern,”_   he said.

_“Go for it.”_

_“Where did you get this?”_   he asked.

My stolen-from-a-dead-al-samad-guy golden rifle hit the dirt just out of reach.

_“Oh, that!”_   I said.

_“Yes. That.”_

_“An American rogue agent,”_   I lied, _“showed up in Saudi Arabia a few weeks ago. I took it from his corpse.”_

_“It belongs to Al-Samad,”_   he said.

What luck. Found a guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of the personal side-arms of every goddamn Al-Samad agent in the world.

_“What’s Deus Vult’s is yours,”_   I said, trying on a broad smile for effect. _“Help yourself. It pulls right, though. Now…”_

I rattled the chain between the cuffs against the wooden slat.

_“Mind uncuffing me, Dante?”_

_“And you are…?”_   he asked, not moving an inch.

_“Mi-matthew.”_  I said.

_“Matthew…?”_

_“Just Matthew. My parents hated me.”_

_“Another American,”_   he grumbled.

_“Australian, actually. Uncuff me?”_

_“Matthew,”_ he said, leaning over with a key in his hand. _“Please tell Marburg that I do not appreciate the VCI’s business culture.”_

_“The…business culture? Of the VCI?”_

_“Yes,”_   he said. _“No warning before meetings. No sense of respect for those lower down the chain of command.”_

The first cuff sprung free.

_“And the secrecy involving Deus Vult is melodramatic, at best.”_

The second popped open.

_“Melodramatic.”_

_“Yes,”_   he said. He held my PDA out to me.

_“I…will let him know. Right now, in fact.”_

_“Right now?”_   he said. His hand tightened on my rifle.

_“How long have I been out of contact?”_

_“Only an hour.”_

_“An- okay. An hour.”_

Wow.

Not counting the few minutes I spent fighting after Mina’s last time check.

New plan.

_“I need to leave and contact Marburg right away.”_

_“Do it here,”_ he said.

_“Since you clearly don’t trust me, Dante, send someone with me.”_

_“No,”_   he said. _“I want to speak with him as well.”_

I stood up and stretched some of the kinks out of my arms. And legs. And yeah, it sure _felt_ like I’d been sitting by the crate for an hour.

_“That’s gonna be a problem,”_   I told him.

Most the Al-Samad guys were grouped towards the back of the ruin, around the columns and the computer. Only a couple were near Dante and I, one in a far corner, the other standing in front of the scaffolding with his arms crossed.

A few would be enough to shoot me.

The C4 in the crate would be enough to kill me for sure.

_“Why is that a problem?”_   he said.

_“Company culture and everything. You understand.”_

The scaffolding in the front of the ruin was intact. Ten feet of it. Climbing would take time. Plenty of time to shoot a guy. Unless they were distracted. By an explosion that would kill me if I kept standing here next to this crate.

_“I tell you what,”_   I said. _“You give me that rifle back, and I’ll let you talk to him.”_

_“It belonged to The Lieutenant,”_   he protested, as if this made a difference.

_“And I’ve grown attached to it.”_

Also, it was currently the only gun I owned.

He gazed down at it for a moment, moved it around so it caught the light.

_“Fine,”_   he said sadly.

He pushed it towards me. I carefully, no sudden movements, picked it up. Judging by the weight, it was still loaded. Not fully but, enough. A goddamn piece of luck that was.

_“But you stay here to call him,”_ he added.

_“I’ll stay here,”_   I promised.

I shot him and ran.

The guy in front of the scaffolding looked up, eyes wide. He got off one pistol shot before he fell backwards into the scaffolding. It wobbled like crazy. I grabbed the lowest bamboo crossbeam and started up. Curses started flying, some in Italian, some in Arabic, as Al-Samad scrambled into motion. I hauled myself up half the scaffolding before the shooting began. Something blinked red. A grenade arced through the air towards me. I held on to the next bamboo beam with one hand, with the other, grabbed my rifle and swung. The grenade smacked against the barrel. It detonated in mid-air, halfway back between Al-Samad and I. The scaffolding shuddered. I had my hand on the top platform. I tossed the rifle free. A light sting traced across my side. I rolled over the top side, on to the safety of solid ground-

The ruin shook. The noise registered next, a loud, hard _boom._ The scaffolding toppled away from the lip of the pit. Smoke and the smell of burning wood billowed free. I glanced back over, but my eyes stung too hard to see.

“Well, that worked,” I said.

Stone blew outwards. Chunks of column careened through the air. Another explosion sent a shockwave through the ground.

_That wasn’t mine,_ I thought, and then the third one rocked the ruins. A supportcolumn broke apart, and the parts of the structure still standing emitted an alarming, groaning noise.

Time to go.

I pushed myself to my feet, and took off through the ruins.

 

I had a foot over the sportsbike, one hand on the throttle, I was ready to go, when the biggest explosion went off. The fireball swallowed the entire west side of the temple, waves of black smoke overtaking one another as they rushed over the surrounding buildings.

The cop car skidded into the parking lot a second later. The sirens were screaming louder than the explosion.

The door on the car cracked open. I kicked the engine into gear and tore past them and mentally willed them not to notice the bright gold assault rifle slung on my back.

 

\------------------------

11:28

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome

\------------------------

The news was playing in the safehouse. Buzzing noises.

“Mike?” she said.

“Huh?”

Madison was standing in front of the TV.

“Oh, sorry – long day,” I said.

She twisted around. Then her eyebrows went high and she covered her mouth with one hand.

“I imagine,” she said. She pushed her headband back up into her hair quickly. “They’re airing reports on a shootout at the ruins – and while they’re not admitting anything, the word is that it was a terrorist cell.”

Oh, good. I think. I didn’t care. I wanted a nap.

She waved me over, and gestured to the screen. Two CNN reporters were looking at an alarming wordart graphic – CRIME WAVE?

“There weren’t any reports of you being taken into custody, though, so I wasn’t sure what had happened.”

“They spotted me at the ruins, so I had to think quickly.”

She bit her lip, and glanced quickly back at the screen. Recorded video of smoke hanging over the ruins.

“I got the intel I needed, but it made getting out a lot harder.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No. Just need to get my second wind.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I’m going to bed,” I said.

“It’s only noon.”

“It’s midnight somewhere!” I told her, and the couch was right there, so convenient, so I collapsed on it and thought I’d have to work hard to ignore the sun, but no, sleep was there for me.

 

 

\------------------------

Moon is coming in through the window

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome

\------------------------

I could see why Madison had been worried. The reflection in the bathroom mirror had dried blood clinging to the hair on the back of his head, and more blood layered over top of his neck.

That gash over the top of my scalp did explain the headache.

And the blood on the sofa throw pillow.

Apparently, one of the sniper rounds had come closer than I thought.

As had some other shot. A vibrant, ugly red line laid over top of my right thigh. The knobbly scab was already forming.

The skin had ached badly when I'd pressed an adhesive bandage on it.

Washing my hair out was a painful sensory experience I’d rather forget. Especially once the wound started bleeding again.

All in all, an unpleasant evening. Made worse when I discovered the broken, melted, fragmented remains of my PDA in my jeans pocket. It had taken the rest of the bullet that had scarred my leg. Great.

The TV was on and muted in the living room. I fetched the remote and plopped back down on the couch.

_“-terrorist attack on the ruins of Carsulae was thwarted today by an undisclosed branch of Italian law enforcement. The Italian government has not released the name of the organization involved, citing security concerns-”_

Light footsteps from the kitchen.

Madison walked over, carrying another green smoothie thing.

She pushed it into my hands.

“Drink it,” she said. “Mina’s orders.”

It tasted like dead plants, emotional bitterness, and Spirulina.

“Mina called?” I asked, in between choking on what I couldn’t be sure wasn’t an attempt to poison me.

“She said there was a shootout, and she didn’t know what had happened. I told her you were back.”

“Ah." They'd thought me dead. Oops. "Sorry. My PDA got shot.”

“Was it really a terrorist attack? Mina didn’t say.”

“Yeah, Al-Samad was there.”

“And they destroyed the ruins,” she said, with a sigh. “What are we going to do?”

“They…” I started.

It might be better to discuss the mysterious detonations with Mina first.

Not like Madison was a stranger with no past and a record of untraced name changes or anything.

“They…did destroy the ruins. Blew ‘em right up.”

She watched the footage on the screen.

_“Bastards,”_ she muttered under her breath.

“I’m in full agreement.”

One of the CNN anchors made a bad pun about ruins. The other anchors laughed awkwardly.

“I have to get to the warehouse soon,” I thought out loud, “before the leads grow cold or Marburg moves the evidence out…I’m still running on adrenaline, anyway.”

“I noticed you had medical supplies in the cabinet…if you want, I could…”

“I did have one question – when you were checking up on me shortly before we met…why didn’t you use your work terminal in Rome?”

“What?” she asked sharply. “How do you know that?”

“I was monitoring it. You used a temp employee’s computer at your office – why?”

She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, and pushed her hairband up.

“It was,” she explained, “a Halbech contractor from Milan, working with the VCI. I thought using his computer would help hide what I was doing – guess I messed that up.”

“A contractor from Milan? Do you know who it was?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. They let him go, though – word was, he was accessing files he didn’t have clearance for.”

Sounded like Parker, all right.

“Do you know his name?”

“I never saw him, only heard about what happened. Why?”

“No reason,” I said. “Just curious.”

She stared at me. I stared back. The house was quiet for a moment while the newscasters switched to a new story.

_“A new museum exhibit has caused chaos in the streets of Rome. The Roman-”_

“You should get some sleep, Madison,” I said.

I muted the TV, and handed off the remote.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> d177-182, and with that, this is almost exactly the one year milestone _aptor_! i managed to do this damn thing almost every other day! i need a hobby - oh, wait.  
>  also i live for the day i actually get a trivia question right because of this damn thing. i think i might physically die if the uss algol is ever an answer, and im not actually joking about that


	34. Storming of the Madonna della Scoperta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a simple trip to a storage facility goes ~~predictably~~ wrong and no, it could _not_ have been predicted, but thanks for the vote of confidence

\------------------------

Monday, 3/19, too damn early in the morning

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome

\------------------------

The foggy mist in the pre-dawn air made it hard to focus on my logs. I couldn’t tell if I was asleep or not. I had to pinch my hand every few minutes.

I rubbed my eyes again and stared at what I’d already written.

_Algol email sent to Al-Samad. Al-Samad doesn’t know who sent it. Who sent it?_

I sent it. No, I _told_ them I sent it. I didn’t actually send it.

I pinched my hand again.

I shook myself a second later. The notebook paper stuck to my face when I lifted my head from the paper.

What time was it?

“Morning!” Madison said.

I didn’t have the energy to be shocked about her presence in the other deck chair.

“Mmmm.” I said.

“What’s that?” she said.

“Mmmmmm.”

She reached out for the paper. I assented with a yawn.

“Hm,” she remarked. “What do you mean, Al-Samad doesn’t know who sent the email? They sent it, right?”

“Fuck if I know,” I grumbled.

“Was it the VCI?”

I shrugged. “Probably. Maybe not.”

“There’s a lot of wiggle room between _probably_ and _maybe not.”_

“Tell me about it.”

“Well…what _do_ we know? Maybe talking about it will help.”

“Probably. Maybe not.”

“I’m…just trying to help,” she said, drawing back. She folded the paper up, and moved it across the table.

“Yeah, I know. I’m…”

Exhausted? Tired?

I’m better than that.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not a morning person. Gimme a minute.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She waited in the mist, eventually taking hold of the paper again. She started making creases and lines in it, triangular folds and flaps appearing at different angles as she created shapes.

“It’s an orchid,” she said, when she caught me watching her progress. She folded over another small triangle.

“It looks good,” I said.

“Thanks. So...?”

“So?”

“Do you want to talk about the email?”

_Not really._

She twirled the orchid around, flipped it over, and started crinkling creases.

“Well…” I started. “Someone sent it. And then, someone blew up the ruins.”

“I thought Al-Samad did?”

“Not all of it. Someone was aiming to take them out, probably whoever sent the email.”

“Mr. Marburg?”

“That’s the problem. Halbech is in charge of Marburg. Marburg is in charge of the VCI – at least, part of it. He's in charge of the part that’s telling Al-Samad what to do, so why eliminate them? It’s not as if Al-Samad has had a chance to do anything yet.”

“Nothing that we’ve noticed,” she pointed out.

“With Al-Samad, we’d notice.”

“What if they were about to do something big? Something that Mr. Marburg didn’t plan for?”

“He was sending them weapons. He wanted them there. They were using his door code for a computer password.”

She sat the orchid down, and rested her chin on her hands.

“Hm,” she said.

1127\. Could have been random, though.

Was it possible to get headaches inside your skull? Inside the bone itself?

“You know anything about the year 1127?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“You know who _would_ know-” I said idly, and stopped myself, because, yeah, he would know. But this wasn’t Alpha Protocol anymore.

“Who?”

“No one,” I said. “Nothing. Someone I used to know, history buff. If 1127 is a date, he’d be able to figure it out.”

“We should ask him,” she said. “It’s a pretty important number to Mr. Marburg. He’s made it several of his door codes.”

“Good for Marburg.”

“We should ask him.”

Yep. It _was_ possible to get a headache inside your skull. Of all the days to get shot.

“Well?” Madison asked.

“Remember that guy I told you about? The one that’s trying to kill me?” I explained.

“There are a couple of those,” she said, with no trace of humor. “Which one?”

Marburg could have just picked a birthday or an anniversary like the rest of the world.

“OH,” she said, eyes widening suddenly, as if this was a big deal. “THAT one.”

“Mm.”

“Well,” she said. “You could ask Mina to ask him.”

“Yeah.”

“Or…I could ask her? If you don’t want to?”

I had to go check out the storage facility today. Poke around. See if I couldn’t find any computer records. As soon as possible. I couldn’t afford to be falling asleep all over the place.

“I’ll do it. This isn’t your job.”

“Do you think figuring out what’s there will help?”

“Given our current track record? I’m guessing it’ll make things worse. But that’s what they pay me for.”

“You’re getting paid?! I had to burn through all my sick days for this.”

“Trade jobs?”

“No thanks,” she said.

 

\------------------------

06:42

Massae Storehouse

Rome

\------------------------

 

The tall concrete wall ended about a foot above my head. I had to jump to catch the edge. I landed in front of a man in a suit. He was smoking a cigarette, a black suit jacket folded over his arm and Samael Seraphim pistol in an arm holster.

So much for an easy mission. Should have brought the rifle. At least I had my new knife.

I left his body stuffed behind the back tire of a dirty moving van. The rest of the small loading dock looked clear. There were muffled shouting noises coming through the door to the warehouse.

 _“Нет, нет!”_ a strained voice said. “I’ve…”

He hacked out a cough.

“I’ve told you everything.”

“Everything?” another man asked gruffly. “No, I think we will need more than that.”

American accent. Marburg’s men?

The thin wooden door had a broken lock hanging off it, and a dead keypad. I pushed the door with a finger, and when it didn’t squeak, pushed it a little further.

The warehouse was dark, the windows lining the top blocked off by plywood boards. Some light squeezed through the gaps and made dusty shadows against the piles and piles of crates stacked on the concrete floor. Porcelain and marble states strapped into wooden frames sat among the boxes, like extra guards. A short man in a leather jacket was seated on top of crate, pushed back against a statues, arms bound behind back. Blood dripped from a cut on his chin down onto his jeans. Two men in suits and sunglasses stood in front of him.

I ducked behind the nearest box as the Russian started babbling again.

“But I don’t _know_ what happened in Moscow! There was someone there, a man, Thornton, he…”

One of the suit men cut him off sharply. “Enough about this Thorton already, he’s dead!”

 _Oh?_ I though, and huddled a little closer to the box. No need to disabuse them of the notion.

“Dead in Saudi Arabia,” the other added. He raised a fist to inspect the drying blood on it. “What. About. The shipments?”

The Russian opened his mouth. A roll-up door on a truck loading bay across the floor rattled once, and shuddered into motion. Several well-armed men in tracksuits ran through, shouting and diving behind boxes.

“I thought you made sure we weren’t being followed,” the first suit man grumbled. He walked smoothly around the crate, and knelt there.

“Oh, man…” The other said. He pulled a silenced pistol out of a hip holster, aimed it at the Russian’s head, and fired. Then he too circled around the crate. Several SMG shots glanced off the box, missing him by centimeters. “Marburg’s gonna be pissed.”

The first popped out from the behind the box. He balanced an assault rifle’s barrel against the edge and checked the sight.

“Better clean up this mess, then,” he said.

A burst of bullets from the rifle and a scream across the room.

The two men behind the crate had their backs to me. If I’d had my own gun…but I didn’t. And drawing attention to myself in the middle of this firefight seemed like the kind of thing that would make Mina even more upset with me.

Shots echoed through the room.

“Fucking Cossacks,” the second of Marburg’s men said. “Should’ve stayed in ‘Mother’ Russia.”

Marburg’s men got off a few more shots, then dove out on opposite sides and advanced to the next set of boxes.

Now or never. I ducked out from behind my own box. _Stay low._ No one seemed to notice as I snuck around the outside of the warehouse, jumping from box to box. The Russians, if that’s who they in fact were, had more than enough on their hands. Marburg’s men were destroying their ranks.

There was a thin, rickety wooden door in the corner of the room. It was bashed in.

A bald man in a suit looked up from a computer. He looked at me, down at a pistol beside the keyboard, and back at me.

I threw my knife, wrong type for that, hardly aiming. I threw it, hoped, and hit the deck. When the shots didn’t come a second later, I uncovered my head.

The hilt of the knife stuck out of his stomach. He had a hand around it, gasping. I planted a boot on his chest and dislodged it.

The computer was still logged in.

Figuring out whether or not to call Mina took longer than her picking up.

“Mike,” she said without preamble. “The police channels are lighting up. Are you still at the warehouse?”

“I interrupted a lethal question and answer session. Getting some additional data now.”

She huffed a sigh. “Well, the authorities are on their way. So whatever you need to do-”

“Almost done,” I said. “But I want to know who they were torturing. Let me ID him, and then I’m out of here.” 

“All right…” she said doubtfully. “But hurry.”

No kidding. The shots were dying down outside. I got halfway back across the room when I heard…I don’t know. Something metallic. Three Russian were firing wildly at Marburg’s men towards the back of the room. No one was looking at me. No one else seemed concerned. I squeezed the knife.

A barrage of bullets came through the open roll door. The outstretched arm on a statue imploded. Several crates blew apart into a haze of splinters. I dropped, several bullets clipping the air above me.

The shooting stopped. Russian swearing started.

“Michael, Michael,” a familiar voice said.

The _fuck_ was _she_ doing here?

“Sie?” Mina exclaimed over the earpiece. “Mike, tell me it’s not.”

I stuck my hands up first, then stood. “Don’t suppose Grigori told you where to find me this time.”

Sie chuckled, keeping, I could hardly fail to notice, her massive minigun centered on me.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re here for Marburg.”

“I am as surprised as you, _dahling.”_

The Russians at her side didn’t look to eager to stop pointed their guns at me, either.

The distant sounds of sirens filtered in through the open back gate.

“Mike, you’ve got less than a minute,” Mina reported.

“There’s a split in the VCI,” I said. “You’re fighting Marburg. That’s why you’re here; I can help, if you tell me what’s going on.”

She gestured at one of the Russians. He sauntered over to the man Marburg’s guys had been questioning.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “that as much as I enjoy our time together, I will have to leave you.”

The man hoisted the body over a shoulder. I took a step towards him. Every finger hovering near a trigger shifted.

“Mike, get out of there,” Mina warned.

“Just tell me who he is, what’s going on, anything. Sie-”

Her Russians kept their weapons trained on me as she walked out without another word. Then they followed, not so much as a _hey, maybe we’re on the same side here, maybe we can help each other._

 _“Thorton,”_ Mina said tensely.

“I know, I know,” I said.

The side door was blocked by an enormous, ornate antique vase. Too heavy to move, but to unbalance it? By the time the cops blew past me on the road, lights challenging the early morning sunlight, there’d be nothing in the warehouse but vase shards, bullet casings and dead Deus Vult to deal with. I kept my hands in my pockets and my head down as they passed.

“There’s good news,” Mina offered. “Can you talk, or do you want me to wait?”

“Go ahead,” I said, trying not to move my lips too much. Few people were out on the sidewalks. Those who were out confined themselves to the other industrial buildings, other warehouses, a couple of smaller, closed businesses. I looked out of place. It didn’t help that the scabbed, aching wound on my thigh was complaining. Hard not to limp once I started paying attention to the soreness.

“We’ve got evidence of a transaction between Russian weapons dealers and Marburg.”

“Wait,” I said, talking despite myself. “Actual hard evidence?”

“It’s not going to stand up in court, but…”

She laughed, with disbelief, suspicion, doubt, sure, but it was a laugh.

“Yeah, I think so, Mike.”

“I’m guessing the deal went south, then. Marburg tried to double cross the Russians, and they caught wind of it.”

“Maybe. I’m not sure how Sie plays into it.”

“Who cares?” I exclaimed, the pain from my leg gone now. “We’ve got something solid this time. We can-”

“Who cares? Mike-”

“I care, I care,” I reassured her. “Just…this is a big deal.”

“Believe me. I know. We aren’t _that_ much better off, though – we still have to figure out what he’s doing here in Rome, and stop him before he does it.”

“Maybe we don’t. Maybe…”

The thinnest beginnings of an alternate plan. Something different.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe we send this to Scarlet, she gets the story out, Italy takes care of its Marburg problem itself.”

Madison goes home. I go-

To Taiwan. Forgot about that for a second.

“I…” Mina said. “That…might not be the worst idea we’ve come up with. Look, this…”

She sighed.

“This is your call,” she said. “What do you want to do?”

It sounded suspiciously like a peace offering. _I took lead on the Madison thing, you take this._

“We call Scarlet. And if you want, all _three_ of us can figure out what to do next.”

_I disagree, but I’ll back your plays anyway._

“Alright, Mike,” she said, a smile in the back of her voice.

The world swam, one hazy wave passing through everything visible and distorting the lines of buildings and the road. I stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk.

“Mike?” Mina asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “Headache. I-”

-could feel myself losing my balance again. I fell flat on the pavement, tried to push myself back up but the palms of my hands belonged to someone else and they only sort of looked like my hands.

“Mike,” Mina said, all command now. “Talk to me.”

 _Sleepy,_ I answered.

It came out as a slurred slllllllllshhhhhh noise.

A hand grabbed at my hair, light pain radiating from the sniper wound on my head. The hand pulled my head off the pavement. The man tugged his sunglasses off, exchanging them for a small penlight in his pocket. He ran the light back and forth, brightly. Stinging my eyes. Too tired to blink the blue spots out.

“Mm?” I said.

“Resistant fucker,” he said. “Damn.”

He replaced the light. He tapped a bulky pistol gently against my side.

“Okay, Thorton. You can come quiet, or I can tranq you again. Up to you.”

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

I couldn’t feel my legs. Or much of me. The sunshine was pleasant on my forehead. Small patch of warm in the cold air.

He shook a hand in front of my face, my vision blurred out, and he became a round person-shaped blob.

“Goddamn it,” he swore. “Fine.”

The ground shifted underneath me, and then it wasn’t ground, but air. Standing? Who cared. Didn’t. Much at least.

“Let’s go,” his voice said. The world was a big blur of sunlight and brownish building colors.

Footsteps. Idle rumbling car engine.

 _“Fuck,”_ he shouted, and it felt like falling.

Someone else shouted something odd, ringing words, and loud. Even louder the shots. And siren. Didn’t matter. Ground cold with night and air warm with dawn. Nice. Good, then.

Okay.

 

 

I woke up, snatched my gold assault rifle from the coffee table, and aimed it at…

I was holding my assault rifle. When did I get that? How was I…?

God fucking _damn_ , my head was killing me. Someone had taken a meat tenderizer to my brain. I was holding my assault rifle? I sat it down on the coffee table. The safehouse looked ominous at this time of night. No moonlight, only clouds. I could barely make out the dark outline of the sofa underneath me.

What had I been doing, again? My laptop wasn’t around, so…maybe watching the news? I couldn’t recall.

These weren’t the clothes I was wearing when I woke up this morning.

I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember if I’d woken this morning at all.

No. I’d gone out, at least I thought I had, but when did I even get home? Daytime? Nightime? I couldn’t remember, and the more I tried, the worse it got. I couldn’t picture a thing, not walking around the safehouse, not walking around Rome, not working, not talking, not anything. What’d I done all day? How did I get here – when did I even fall asleep?

No. I’d been at the warehouse. Remembering it felt like dredging up an old dream. I’d been there, a shootout between the Russians and Deus Vult had happened, and then…and then Sie, of all people, had shown up. The police were on their way, the sirens were growing louder and louder, and I’d slipped out the back door and headed for home. And I’d…gone…done…went…?

Nothing. Couldn’t recall anything. Not a damn thing. Maybe Madison was right. Maybe I had been having bad dreams. Maybe this was one. Maybe these were head injuries. The shot on my head, the embassy explosion, hell, all of Saudi Arabia. Maybe it was stress. No. I was fine. I was dreaming. That’s why I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember something that hadn’t actually happened.

The sound of something solid hitting the floor. I spun around, grabbing the rifle in one motion.

Madison was gathering several books from the ground. I dropped the rifle on the sofa before she could see it.

She glanced up at the small noise the rifle made against the cushions.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You’re awake. Mina asked for you to call her right away. The police took your burner phone, though, so…”

She hesitated before walking over and handing off the cell I’d gotten for her. Her emergency ‘call the cops on the operation’ phone.

Wait.

“The police?” I asked. My throat was dry. It almost hurt to talk. Hell of a dream.

“Awake?” I added.

“You should talk to Mina. I’m going to make some dinner.”

She gave her phone a purposeful shake.

“It’s not secure,” I said, an absurd consideration, since this was all a dream.

She placed it carefully on the back edge of the sofa, and watched me.

Might as well go along with it. Easier than focusing through the thunderstorm going on behind my eyes.

“Hey,” I said into the phone. “It’s Mike.”

“I know who it is,” said Mina’s voice. “You don’t have to say it. Listen – we don’t have a lot of time. I’d rather not talk on this line.”

“Sure thing.”

“I’m going to send you instructions for getting a new PDA. Don’t get it tonight – I think it’s better if you lay low for at _least_ that long. Try to go soon, though. We’ll need secure communication with the VCI situation.”

“Soon. Got it.”

“Mike, are you okay?” she said abruptly.

“Mm-hm.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked. Odd question.

“Does it matter?” I inquired loosely.

“Damn it,” she said, with a resigned lack of force. “Mike, you got tranq’d by one of Marburg’s men. I suspect you’re suffering some memory loss – and the trip to the hospital didn’t help.”

“The trip to the what?”

“The hospital,” she said. “As far as I can tell, one of Marburg’s agents tranq’d you and a cop caught him. VCI reps rescued him, but you, the police stuck in the hospital. Looks like they noticed the multiple gunshot wounds. _And_ the lack of ID.”

“So,” I started slowly. “if all that happened, the warehouse and the shootout and the trip to the hospital, then how’d I end up back here?”

Silence from the line.

“I really wish the tranqs had fewer side effects. Or more predictable ones, at any rate.”

“Mina?”

“According to Sie?” she said, the words strained. “Surkov.”

Now the silence was from my end. Faint chirping from the stove in the kitchen.

“I don’t know, Mike,” Mina continued. “I lost contact after you were shot. Your phone broke when you fell the second time. It was hours before I could reach Madison. She wasn’t answering the vid calls to the television. When she did, Sie was here as well. And she-”

“Sie knows where we are? The _VCI_ know where we are?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding far more calm than she should about it. “You were right – there is a schism in the VCI.”

“And, what. Surkov? How does she… where does she…?”

I had trouble finding the right questions. The VCI knew where we were. We weren’t safe here. We hadn’t been before, and we sure as hell weren’t now.

“I don’t know. I think Surkov’s paying Sie. It would explain a lot. At any rate, Sie claims Surkov asked her to get you out of the hospital. I don’t know how they found you. I thought you might have told them, but...you really don’t remember any of this?”

“No,” I said.

“Can you try?”

Knocking over a vase. Walking out of the warehouse. Walking down the street. My head ached badly. Even the shallow moonlight was starting to hurt my eyes.

“No?” Mina guessed.

“Maybe after I get some real sleep.”

“I doubt anything’s going to change. But, Michael…the only other person who could have told them was Madison.”

“No,” I said immediately. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m not saying it does, but, if you didn’t tell Sie, either Madison did, or the VCI already knew where the safehouse was.”

“She’s not a spy.”

“She doesn’t have to be. She-”

“She would have needed to figure out something was wrong-”

“-she could have seen it on the news-”

“She would have needed to figure out what happened-”

“-that’s called critical thinking-”

“-and then found me, and, and this is the big one, talked her way out of getting shot on sight by Sie.”

“She talked her way into the safehouse, didn’t she?” Mina said simply.

“She’s not a spy,” I repeated.

“Again, she doesn’t have to be. Just smart, and lucky, and decent with social engineering. Which-” she said quickly, before I could protest- “anyone can learn, for many reasons.”

The sound of a pan scraping against a counter.

“Alternatively,” Mina proposed, “she’s working with Sie’s faction of the VCI, and Sie simply asked for the information.”

“She’s not a spy, and she’s not VCI.”

“Michael, she _is_ VCI. Don’t forget that.”

She wasn’t.

“Why do you think I showed her the embassy? I needed to judge her reaction.”

But she had been, hadn’t she?

“There’s good news,” Mina offered, unnecessary pity filtering through her words.

Good news, though. I could use some of that.

“What?”

“We’ve got solid evidence linking Marburg to arms dealers. Right before you were shot, you asked me to send it to Scarlet.”

It was good news. I knew it was good news. The lucky break of all lucky breaks. If we played it right, we might even get to shut Marburg down before he could cause any further harm to Rome.

It was good news.

“Mike?” Mina asked.

“Yeah, I heard. That’s great. I’m glad we’ve got it.”

“Look, Mike…Madison is probably who she says she is. You’re right. Her figuring out everything that was going on? Not likely. I couldn’t do it, even with everything I knew. I doubt she could.”

She could have if she was VCI.

“No,” I said. “It’s not likely. But then again, neither is stopping Halbech. And look at us.”

“Mike…”

“I’ll send the evidence to Scarlet. We need to crack Surkov’s data, as soon as we can.”

She accepted the topic change gracefully. “I’m working on it.”

“Good. Meantime, I’ll talk to Madison.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Her disjointed, altered identity. The way she’d just shown up coincidentally on our radar, all of a sudden, right when we needed her help. She’d been using Parker’s terminal. She’d been to Marburg’s villa. She’d been VCI.

She came out of the kitchen with a large bowl of scrambled eggs and some toast balanced on top of two plates. She smiled broadly, and plunked down on the couch beside me.

“Later this evening,” I told Mina.

“Okay,” she said. “Just…”

“Just?”

“Nothing,” she said dismissively. “Forget it.”

“Too late. It’s going to drive me crazy.”

“Just…don’t make the mistake we made with Halbech, okay?”

“What, hand over a set of a missiles?”

“Trusting people we shouldn’t.”

“Isn’t that the golden rule of espionage?”

“Try to remember that, then.”

Madison sat the food on the coffee table. The rifle followed. She flipped the news on.

“I will,” I said, Madison’s fingerprints still smudging the shine on the rifle.

“I need to work on Surkov’s data. Call me when you have your new PDA,” she said.

“Copy that.”

“What was that about?” Madison asked, when I tossed the phone onto the table. It spun and nicked the edge of the bowl.

“We need to talk later.”

“About?”

“You.”

“Oh,” she said, her face slipping into surprise and confusion for a moment, before regaining its regular smile. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Just checking in.”

“Alright,” she said. “Let me know.”

 

* * *

 

 

This time when I woke up, I knew I was awake. The TV hummed gently, the voice of nonstop reporting hardly above a whisper. Other than that, there was no sound. Nothing, not clattering from the kitchen, not the low whine of too many electronics and appliances and lights on. Not noise from the street, no even the sound of a breeze.

Saint James was gone.

“Madison?” I asked quietly, scanning the room. Her paperweight wasn’t on the table; the television remote placed neatly in the corner of the coffee table. Her shoes weren’t at the door.

“Madison?” I asked again, calmly retrieving my rifle from where it lay, undisturbed, next to the empty bowl of eggs. “Are you here?”

Kitchen, empty. Nothing. The safeguards on the front door hadn’t been bothered. Neither had any of the windows. Even the door to the patio deck was sealed.

Someone could have gone out.

Or, someone could have come in. And taken someone back out with them.

I hitched the rifle up to my shoulder, and went back down the loft stairs as quietly as I could. Nothing but darkness, the moon hidden by clouds. Nothing in the bathroom but a faint spark of light bouncing around and flicking from the barrel of my rifle.

Take a deep breath, and nudge the door to her bedroom open. Motionless curtains, still ceiling fan, open duffle bag with clothes and shoes and papers spilling out and there she was, safe. Safe, and there, and asleep on the edge of the bed curled up next to a stack of her laundry, as if she’d gotten tired halfway through packing and quit without meaning to.

Packing?

For what?

She shifted in her sleep with a light snore, kicking a book of the corner of the bed. It landed with a hard, sharp _thunk_ , she shivered, and blinked back awake. I had nowhere to stash the rifle except on the ground, so on the ground it went.

“Mike?” she mumbled, swinging her head around with confusion, before she finally zeroed in on the book, and her features cleared. “Are you okay?”

“Just tired,” I said, casually. A look tore through her, completely and exactly matching in exhaustion and weariness and wear. There and gone. She smiled to cover it up, but even her smile was wan, and forced. How easy was it, for her, to think that this was never gonna end?

“We’ve found what we were looking for,” I offered.

“Is it enough?” she asked, hopeful chasing at the tiredness in her eyes.

Her one-time VCI employed eyes.

Then she added, “Can you take it to the authorities?” and she was a civilian again, in a position way over her head. Or trying to get intel to take back. Or not. My own head hurt too much, had been for too long, now that I thought about it. And every part of me wanted her to be…what she said she was. Every part.

It had never made sense, though.

“No,” I told her. It felt like a decision. It felt final. "No. If I do that, they won’t respond in time. _I_   have to do it.”

“No, you don’t!” she protested loudly, vehement, pushing herself upright and knocking off another book with the suddenness of her movements. “Let the police handle this now – you can let them capture Marburg, expose his involvement.”

I didn’t know where the anger came from, except that it was there. Hand him over? And, what? Give the police time to fuck everything up?

“The police? Don’t you get it, Madison? The police try to stop this, and Halbech’ll walk away – I need to catch them in the act.”

She drew back, a motion she tried to hide and couldn’t.

“The more public their capture,” I added. “the more damage I can do to them.”

“I’m surprised,” she said rapidly, words mashing together, “you trust anyone to do anything.”

“I don’t,” I bit back.

“That goes for me, too, then, I take it.”

“No, I…”

She was gripping the blankets on the bed, hands balled up into fists. A civilian on the receiving end of a broken promise, or a spy who knew I was on to her?

“What?” she demanded, tone flat.

The book on her nightstand – the book of Keats. Upside down, open to some part in the middle.

“I didn’t mean you,” I said, shaking my head slowly. "Look – it’s been a long day…I just got tired. I appreciate the concern.”

 _“And_ ,” I added, as she crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows. “I appreciate you trying to warn me about Marburg.”

She sat with that for a moment, looking away towards the book on her nightstand.

“Mike…” she finally said. “I made a choice as soon as I found out they intended to kill you. Of course…”

She smiled.

“Of course?” I asked.

“Of course, the fact that you already knew would have influenced my decision.”

“No, I appreciate the warning.”

“Anytime,” she said, rolling her eyes slightly. Still smiling. “You’d do the same for me.”

Silence. A quiet lull she probably thought was reflective, was friendly, was… but…

I would have done the same for her, I _had._ And yet, I could still sit here and imagine, could even think about thinking that Madison was out to get me.

Paranoid. Too much time spent under too much pressure. I could handle it, of course I could handle it, but the kind of stakes we were operating under? Bound to make anyone a little paranoid. A little mistrusting. I was being reasonable.

It didn’t matter. This would all be over soon. She could go home, safe, and I…could keep going, for just a little while longer. End of the world, and all that.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I told her. “We’ve had a rough couple days.”

“You didn’t wake me,” she said. “I was waiting for _you_ to wake up. I meant to stay awake longer, but…”

She smiled again, and suppressed a sudden yawn.

“Good night, Madison,” I told her. “Rest up, we need to be ready.”

“Alright, Mike,” she assented.

“I’ll be in the living room if you need anything,” I promised.

I waited until she flipped the nightstand lamp off to grab the rifle off the ground.

 

* * *

 

 _Mina,_ I wrote.

_I need a favor._

_The number 1127. I need to know if it’s significant, or if it’s just random. I’m thinking it’s a year, but Google’s not giving me anything. So, hate to do this, but if you know anyone who knows anything about history…_

_Next time you’re in the neighborhood, I’ll buy you a drink or something to make up for it._

_Mike_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, yeah. about the only way sie can exist on a G22 run is if i cheat with canon a little. so, cheat with canon a little, i shall.  
>  ~~dont worry. in a little while, im about to cheat with canon way worse~~


	35. Mercury Passing Before the Sun

\------------------------

06:32, 3/20

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome

\------------------------

_BREAKING NEWS!_ the television lied.

_“A string of hacker attacks have recently struck the US Department of Defense. The attacks have been described as ‘internet terrorism’-”_

“Anything on the news?” Madison asked.

I nearly dropped the remote in surprise.

“Nothing about Marburg,” I said. “Didn’t know you were up.”

She crossed around the sofa, and stopped beside me. She regarded the Breaking News with an intense look of honest concern. So _that's_ why the press was still considered powerful.

_“-repeated attempts to break into the department’s systems in order to steal or-”_

“Marburg was able to get the munitions into the country through Al-Samad…" I said, ignoring the Breaking News in favor of the more pressing problem. "But the warehouse was the destination of the bombs,”

“He wasn’t planning to destroy the warehouse, though, right?” she asked. "Was he planning to store the bombs there, use them later in Rome?”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” I said. “The warehouse was on the outskirts of Rome, there’s plenty of other storage areas he could have used.”

“So there was something special about that warehouse. It’s inventory…?”

“Mostly art and museum pieces. Maybe Marburg despise art. Although after seeing his villa, I doubt it.”

“I do, too, he actually hired me because I’d done part-time work at a museum in Rome.”

“Marburg hired you because you used to work at a museum?”

“Yeah!” she said. “The Museum of Art in Rome. I think they have an exhibit on the crusades showcased there now…what’s wrong?”

If I could remember the labels…something about them…

“Some of the pieces in that warehouse…” I said. “I’m certain they were from that museum.”

She drew the conclusion immediately, raising a hand to her mouth and taking a physical step back from the television, as if distance from it would change anything.

“He’s going to bomb the museum?” she asked, already knowing the answer. “But why?”

“I have no idea, but that’s his target. I need to get there before he does.”

“Mike-” she started, a warning note already present.

“The cops, I know. But, Madison-”

“Can we at least spend a couple of days figuring out what’s actually going on? Before we get in over our head?”

“I-”

A pleasant chime from my laptop saved us from going over this _again._

“Hold that thought,” I said.

She followed me over to the dining table anyway. “What happened to that ‘we have no time for anything but action’ mentality?”

“Ha, ha,” I said. “Funny.”

“I’m being serious, Mike.”

An email from Mina. Subject?

_RE: 1127_

Oh boy.

“I know you’re serious,” I told Madison, only partially paying attention.

_You owe me more than a drink,_ Mina wrote. _You owe me a whole damn bar._

“It’s not funny,” Madison said, an edge creeping into her tone.

“I wasn’t…” I said, waving a hand at the screen and trying not to smile any more than I already had. “Not you. It’s Mina.”

“Who would also agree with me. We need time, Mike! We can’t just run off, not if Mr. Marburg is as dangerous as you say he is!”

I skipped through a paragraph of Mina’s annoyed venting. I’d rather not hear any more about Darcy than I had to.

_The conclusion? We’ve got two possibilities._

“If we talk to the police, yes. It might take a few days,” Madison said.

_The first, and in my opinion, most likely? In the year 1127, the Hohenstaufen dynasty was established in Germany by – get this – Conrad the Third. Sound like someone we know?_

1127 – it might fit. But…there _had_ to be other, better Conrads, if that’s what he was going for. Conrads the Firsts, for example.

_I wouldn’t get too excited about the second one. Frankly, I think it’s a reach, and I think Darcy just brought it up to waste even_ more _of my time._

“But, if Mr. Marburg is planning on bombing that museum, it’s going to take him a few days to get everything in place anyway.”

_Anyway,_ it said, _he_ also _says that apparently, the First Crusade was launched on November 27 th. 11/27. Make of that what you will._

_Mike, I don’t think I have to say this, but maybe I do. If Darcy’s working with them, and he’s high-ranking…then they’re going to know you were asking about 1127. I don’t know if they’ll care, but try for once to be careful, okay? The free world as we know it would appreciate that._

“We can afford at least a day, right?”

I pushed the laptop over towards Madison.

“Give or take a couple of hours,” I said, forcing a calm I didn’t feel.

She read quickly. “I don’t understand.” she said, nudging the laptop back over towards me. “We already know Mr. Marburg going after the museum.”

“Except,” I explained, feeling the familiar pressure of an absolute deadline sinking in, “now they know _we_ know he’s going after the museum.”

“And?”

“And if _you_ knew that two, probably three, possibly more people were after you, if you knew they had figured out your plans, and if you knew that at any time, they could go public with what they knew, what would you do?”

“I’m not Mr. Marburg,” she said.

“Neither am I. But _wait and see_ isn’t an option, not when it comes to this. I have to go. _Now._ ”

She grabbed my arm and yanked hard when I turned to leave.

“Then we go public! Whatever he’s trying to do, whatever he’s hoping to accomplish, he can’t do it if the cops know, right?”

“No time,” I said. I yanked my hand free and mimed a cellphone. “Feel free to try, though.”

I crossed the living room and grabbed my coat off the couch. PDA first – call Mina – museum. Fuck. Gun. Almost forgot about gun. In a museum, though?

“Mike…” Madison said quietly.

Maybe not. But if things went to shit…and with Marburg, they were going to go to shit…

Better to have it, than not.

I was already at the door when Madison said " _Mike_ ," and then added in a rush, “My father worked for the CIA.”

It wasn’t possible that I’d heard her correctly, so I said, “What?”

“My father worked for the CIA,” she repeated. She pulled out a dining table chair, the legs scraping lightly on the floor.

She sighed heavily, and rubbed her eyes. I leaned back against the front door, the assault rifle strapped to my back digging in hard against my spine.

“Mina implied you both where checking up on me?” she asked, with a strained smile.

I shrugged.

“But you were looking under ‘Saint James’, right?”

I nodded.

“It’s my mother’s maiden name. My father and I had a…”

She flicked her eyes towards me, then went back to staring out the window.

“A parting of the ways some time ago. She’s actually the reason I came to Italy. To get away. Taking her name was part of that. My mother was in Italy when she met my father. He was working for the CIA. At the time, he was an analyst, although she didn’t know his job then. When she moved with him back to the States a few months later, she found out.”

She bit her lip, and looked over at me out of the corner of her eye. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

I stuck my thumbs in my pocket.

“Who is your father?” I finally said, since she seemed to expect something from me.

“Alan Parker,” she said quietly. “Mina said…Mina said he was working at VCI. I never saw him. I don’t know if he knew I was there.

“Story of my life,” she added under her breath.

“Your father is Alan Parker,” I repeated.

“Yes,” she said, nodding emphatically, a sad frown in on her forehead. ~~~~

I wasn’t angry, or upset, or even afraid. I kept waiting for a reaction to surface. Something other than the choking feeling that somewhere, someone was playing me. That she was. That Parker was, that somehow this was all supposed to happened and I didn't have a choice.

“Mike,” Madison said, “do you know him?”

“Apparently not well enough,” I said.

“I don’t know what happened to him. Although one of the HR folks had heard through the grapevine that he’d gotten a better offer from Halbech.”

And _that,_ that made sense.

“Holy shit,” I said out loud.

“Mike?”

“I think I know who Halbech’s insider is.”

“My father?”

“Nothing I can do about it now – but that’s a hell of a coincidence. If so, then Westridge may not be involved in this at all – it’s Parker. But…”

Westridge ran Alpha Protocol. Had seemed fully in charge – no, no _seemed._ He _was._ So if Parker was off the rails, he had to know about it. Unless he didn’t care? And why would either of them let me live knowing I was investigating Halbech? If the VCI was truly under Halbech’s control, why order Marburg to let me live?

“It makes no sense…” I repeated, thoughts spinning.

And, if all of that…

Why send Parker’s daughter out to spy on me? Did he think I would find out? Because she was a spy. There was no way she wasn’t. Not after all the coincidences, not after all the VCI bullshit. She could sit there and lie to me if she wanted.

“Mike?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

_Unless she’s being used as well,_ the small, frustrating and contrary voice in my head said. _Marburg hired her…if he found out…if he knew…_

He could have been trying to use her, as well.

VCI was already involved in a power schism, Marburg versus SIE. What was another one to him? Marburg versus SIE versus Parker. Winner takes all.

Not true. The VCI worked for Leland, ultimately, and it was Leland who, ultimately, wanted the museum bombed-

“What day is it?” I asked, feeling cold.

“The twentieth?” she said, standing. “Mike, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner; I didn’t know what to do.”

I didn’t hear a thing, but the twentieth, over and over in my head.

“It’s today,” I said, everything clicking all at once. “It’s today, it’s – fuck, what time is it? We have to – _I_ have to-”

“Mike,” she said, “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a false flag,” I said. “I should have known, Northwood and Flight 6133, and now this-”

“Please, Mike, slow down, I can barely understand you.”

Right. Right. Civilian. Breathe.

“A false flag is-”

“CIA father,” she said, waving a hand. “I know what false flag operations are. What’s so important about the twentieth?”

Something else, such a small detail, and a welcome distraction. “So, that stuff with the _USS Algol?_ That wasn’t trivia night, was it?”

“Mike,” she said. “Why is the twentieth important?”

“He’s – Marburg – Leland – who the fuck ever. They’re making a statement. Terrorism. They need to sell weapons. So sell them, bomb the museum – fear sells, always. And blame Al-Samad”

“Blame Al-Samad? How?”

“I don’t know. Bodies in the museum, maybe? Doesn’t matter. Maybe that’s why he killed them, stop them, wipe them out – gotta _control_ the situation.”

“Mike-”

“Anniversary of the start of the Iraq War,” I said. “March 20th. No one will look any deeper that – if they bother investigating at all.”

“You think…” she said, fitting every disjointed thing I’d said together, “You think the VCI is going to frame Al-Samad for bombing the museum. Today. I don’t understand. Why the mus-”

“The exhibit on the Crusades. It’s controversial, isn’t it? It’s been on the news?”

“I…yes. Yes, it is,” she said. “I think, according to the news, there’s been protests since last week.”

“There you go,” I said.

Another thing clicking into place, another thing I’d been too slow and too unfocused to catch. The curator at Al-Bara’s party, his sudden strong stance against the exhibit, plus whatever he’d already figured out about Halbech…

“Pace’s probably dead, too,” I thought out loud.

“Who?”

“Not now – I’ll explain later. After we deal with Marburg.”

“Wait, Mike,” she said, jogging across the room, and then sprinting when she realized I wasn’t going to stop leaving. “Mike, it’s not even seven yet. They’re not going to open for several more hours.”

“Great. Gives me more time to prepare.”

“Mike-”

“Look,” I said. I kept one hand on the door as I turned to face her. “I know you think this CIA dad thing changes things, but it doesn’t. You can think what you want. You can _do_ what you want. Call the police – in fact, might even be a good thing. By the time they get there, they’ll be witnesses for them to interview.”

“Michael-”

“While you work on that, _I_ am going to go stop these guys from detonating Rome.”

“I don’t think going out angry is the best-”

“I am not,” I said, flinging the door open, “angry.”

She leaned into it and closed it hard. “Really?” she said, “Because you sound upset.”

“You have _no_ idea-”

“And I don’t think you’re in the best mindset to go after Mr. Marburg. I think it’s dangerous, even-”

“You don’t know anything _about-”_

She pushed past me and planted herself in front of the door.

“I’m not moving,” she said, cold and final. “Not until we contact the authorities.”

I laughed.

“Let’s assume, somehow, you _could_ stay there, if I really didn’t want you there. Look around,” I said, gesturing up at the stairs to the loft and the balcony, at the many windows, at the outside morning light. “You think you can keep me here? You think _you_ can keep me here?”

She frowned, and pressed back into the door.

“I think _you_ can keep you here,” she said, “because I think _you_ promised we’d call them, the police.”

“When this is _over,_ I said.”

“And now it is,” she said simply. “We know what he’s doing, and where. We know why. We have proof.”

Maybe she could read the _no_ in my eyes. She started talking a little quicker, maybe she didn’t even notice it happening, but I did.

“Mike, I know you think this has to happen now. My dad was like that, a lot.”

_“Parker?”_   I said, despite myself.

“In the end, he chose what he thought was important over my mother and I, and…and it cost us. But…I think that’s just this life. Mina is like that, too. You two don’t see it, do you?”

“See what? That if we don’t act now, people die? And if they do, that’s on us? Have you ever been late to a meeting, Madison?”

She shook her head. “But I don’t see-”

“Let’s say you were. Just a couple minutes late. Stopped to staple something, maybe. A little thing. But when you get there, everyone’s dead.”

“That doesn't make sense-”

“Only now, let’s pretend that if you were on time, none of that would have happened.”

She shook her head again harder. “Mike, I understand what’s at stake. I just don’t think you do.”

_“I_ don’t,” I repeated, trying hard not to laugh again.

“Rome isn’t our responsibility.”

“Yeah? Then whose is it? Whichever underpaid, overworked cop picks up the phone? His boss? The fucking military? Madison, who cleans this up?”

“We have to have faith in our systems-”

“Faith?” I said. “In our _systems?_ In the systems that let this happen in the first place? Madison, the reason people like me exist in the first place is _because_ at the end of the day, someone has to clean up the fucking planet, and guess the fuck what? It’s not people inside the goddamn _system_ who get to get their hands dirty.”

“Then why save it?” she said, hand tightening around the door knob. “Why bother with all this?”

“I’m not here to debate philosophy with you, Madison. There are lives on the line. Move.”

“I’d like an answer, Mike.”

“Join the club. Are you going to move, or am I going out the window?”

“Tell me, and I’ll move. Why go through all of this, why put us through all of this, why risk everything for a thing that you don’t believe in?”

“Who said,” I said, watching confusion settle on her face, watching surprise and something quieter loosen her grip on the doorknob, “I don’t believe in it?”

“You did?”

“I said the system let this happen. That just means it needs help, and we can’t do that if Halbech blows everything and everyone to pieces, so can I pretty please use the goddamn front door?”

She moved silently, inspecting me. Keeping away from me.

“Thanks a bunch,” I said, with a forced smile. “Stay inside. You’ll be safe here. I’ll be back in a few hours, and _then_ we can call the cops.”

“Fine,” she said, keeping her distance.

“Great,” I said. “And for the record, Madison, I’m not in for the system. I’m in this to save the people that make _up_ the system.”

“I’m sure they appreciate it,” she said, through tight lips.

“If I do my job right, they never have to know.”

“Well,” she said, “maybe they should.”

“Maybe,” I conceded. “But now’s not the time to start.”

She stood in the house staring at my back until I left. I said goodbye, and she said nothing, and I left her there like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _pace,_ pace. ~~can't believe i had to cut that joke~~  
>  full disclosure for anyone suffering through this having not played the game. uh. 1127 is just...not there. um. so.  
>  ~~i mean lets be real by this point almost everything madison-related never happened either rome is just 'rigil going rogue' by now~~
> 
> d191-193


	36. The Expulsion Of The Demons From Arezzo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't his fault.

_\------------------------_

Thursday, 3/20/2008, 16:50

Museum of Art

Rome

_\------------------------_

Getting a hold of my new PDA took an hour; sweeping the museum took a couple more. Fast-talking my way past a guard, and then checking out the ‘off limits to the public’ areas took another few.

I was halfway through an archived collection of old, dark paintings when Mina called.

“I’m in the museum,” I reported.

She hesitated, then the PDA screen froze, and video feed of the safehouse appeared.

“Mike, I just picked up something on the cameras…”

Madison, standing in front of the window, cradling her phone to her ear. At the front door, two armed men in suits and black gloves carefully pushing the door open.

_Move,_ I willed her, already a knot in my stomach telling me it was pointless.

“It’s Marburg’s men,” Mina narrated, also pointless. I had eyes. “They have Madison.”

One man swung his gun at her, shouted something. She gripped the phone harder, lips moving rapidly.

“How,” I asked.

Mina hesitated again, a small intake of breath while the gunmen in the safehouse fired a warning shot over Saint James’ head. She jerked back. Afraid.

“She was calling the cops. They traced it.” Mina explained.

Madison dropped the phone. They approached her carefully. The feed jumped to them strong arming her out of the door.

Mina’d done some editing.

“When?” I asked.

“An hour ago.”

“Where’d they take her?”

“I don’t know,” Mina said. “But, Mike, we need to-”

“The mission, I know.”

_People you care about will start to die._

She’d be fine.

She would be _fine._

I’d honestly believed she would make it out okay. Somehow.

“The cops?” I asked.

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Thanks,” I said, and disconnected.

 

* * *

 

The rows of paintings never ended. The first time I found one of Marburg’s men standing at the end of an aisle, I thought things might be close to being over. Then I found another, and another, and I realized it was never going to end.

“Four hundred feet north,” Mina instructed. “No, Mike, other north.”

“Hard to tell in here.”

A yellowed light flickered overhead.

I ducked past another cross aisle, then doubled back. A few yards away, a wooden door was ajar, hard blue light showing through the cracks. A voice issued precise commands, faint at this distance, clearer and clearer as I got closer.

“And for all those who weren’t paying attention at the briefing,” the man said, “We have an insider man at the museum giving us access to the tunnel system that’s normally used for moving relics in the middle of the night.”

“Relics like your mom?” someone challenged, to light laughter.

“We show up,” the first man said impassively, “in the middle of the museum at Sigma point and move through at H hour plus two. Each team is responsible for keeping the museum crowd under control. Yeah, yeah, Jenkins, we _know_ a night time mission would be easier, but the man upstairs wants broad daylight. So, he’ll get broad daylight. Again, do _not,_ under any circumstance ditch your equipment thinking the blast will destroy the evidence. We’re counting on the authorities being able to analyze the slightest scrap of incinerated material, thus Vulture team placing the bodies. Stow your gear, and drop _nothing.”_

“That’s what she said.”

“Minimum safe distance, _Jenny,_ is half a klick. I _would_ suggest you get even farther away, as there’s going to be lots of stone thrown about the area, but you could use some stones, buddy.”

More laughter.

“Nice try,” said presumably Jenkins.

I went in shooting. If there was anyone in earshot, I hadn’t seen them. In the small space, with their weapons holstered, their guard down, laughter on their faces while they were talking about domestic terrorism? The four of them didn’t stand much of a chance. One got off a couple shots at me, but that was it.

“Where are the tunnels?” I asked Mina.

She searched while I picked my way over the bodies, towards the laptop hooked up to a projector.

“Working on it,” she said.

They’d left it logged in. Two clicks, and I had access to their email. Team movements, reports, encoded-

Madison.

Her name was in the middle of the email. I had to reread the first few sentences over and over before I could make myself understand anything.

_From: Ops Team To: #JollyRoger Subject: Live Asset_

_Attn,_

_Slight change of plans. We have a live asset with us today, just in case our interloper shows up. Madison Saint James is to be taken to the evac point Phi and held until go code Orange. If she makes too much noise, she is to be sedated. Under no circumstance is she to be injured unless you hear a change of orders (and that comes from Marburg). If anyone tries any funny business with the live asset, they will be killed (Marburg’s words, not mine)._

_-Ops Team_

The guilt ballooned up. If I’d let it, it would have taken over.

This was my fault.

She wasn’t to be injured.

She wasn’t.

“They’ve got Madison somewhere,” I reported. I pushed the guilt aside. Save it for later. Promise it that it could have me, later. Once I had her back.

I’d thought…well. They said she wasn’t to be harmed. I didn’t have time to do anything but believe it.

“Understood,” Mina said. “Sending the tunnel schematics to your phone. Get out of the archive, and go left.”

 

* * *

 

The stairs down to the tunnels were damp and empty, except for the corpse of a museum security guard, lying half on the stairs and half on the landing above me.

“Mina,” I asked. “Is there anyone still in the museum?”

“It’s normal hours,” she reminded, a note of curiosity in her voice. “A few tour groups…security guards. It’s a light day for tourists, but that’s still a lot of people if the bombs go off.”

“I won’t let it happen.”

It didn’t look like the security guard had gone peacefully. Two bullet wounds in the chest, one across the temple. Someone had been in a hurry.

And had gone upstairs.

So the team had split. Why?

Footsteps, from up the stairs. I took a few steps back, and hid behind the door.

A low grunt, and the sound of a body being dragged.

_“Fuck this,”_ someone grumbled, in a whisper.

I peeked out. One of Marburg’s men was staring directly at me. He blinked, looked down at the body, and when he looked back up he was facing the barrel of my assault rifle.

He spread his arms, dropping the body. Then he pointed upstairs.

“Rifles make a lot of noise,” he said casually, and shrugged. “Sure you wanna do this?”

“Where’s the bombs?” I asked.

“There’s an exhibit in the North Wing on the Jingkang incident. There might be a few fire lance replicas there,” he said innocently. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

“You _know_ what I mean.”

“I-” he said.

Muffled sharp gunshots from far up the stairs.

He went for the pistol on his belt. I shot him twice.

“Mike,” Mina radioed, “you need to hurry.”

There were too many stairs to run up them all, but no time to walk.

“What’s going on?”

“It…sounds like Marburg’s men are attacking the security guards.” she said. “Security’s outnumbered, they’ll be slaughtered.”

The lobby was designed to be pretty – bright and light, a massive marble hall with arched ceilings and heavy staircases and large expanses of intricate marble tilework marking off café sections and waiting sections and a place for tourists to wait in line. I don’t think the designer had accounted for pitched battle. With no cover, and with Marburg’s men coming down the staircases, and with the element of surprise, security hadn’t stood much of a chance. Five of them were already on the ground, only a couple breathing. One guard had taken cover behind an errant and empty display case. She was firing at a man on an upper balcony clear across the room. Another guard was crouched in the café behind an Ale Salute vending machine, ducking out with a shotgun every few seconds to fire uselessly at the two men proceeding down the central staircase. A third slammed into the wall next to me, wrestling desperately with the arms around his throat.

The guard saw me. Marburg’s man didn’t. I dashed forward and locked the VCI in a chokehold. He dropped the guard and started tearing at my forearm with his nails. I yanked him back a step, the guard reached out and stole the man’s pistol from his belt, and then put three rounds in his chest. I dropped the body and we both traded a silent _thanks_ at one another.

Then the guard stiffened and pointed over my shoulder. We hit the ground beside the dead VCI, and I winced as several rifle rounds imploded the marble wall above my head.

The guy on balcony was fumbling with a reload. The guard beside me got back to his feet a split-second before me, but I was faster with aiming. Our shots hit at the same time. The man on the balcony slumped against the stone balustrades. His rifle fell over the edge and clattered on the ground.

_“Grazie ancora_ ,” I said, out loud this time. He nodded back, mouth set in a grim line.

The guard behind the display case, free from the danger of Balcony Man, pulled out her radio and shouted into it. She and the guard in the café advanced at the same time centering and firing at the men coming down the staircase in one smooth motion. They didn’t need my help.

The shooting was over, for the moment.

They all turned at looked at me.

“Uh…” I said. I didn’t look the least bit official. I’d come from the goddamn tunnels with a bright gold assault rifle and I was in civvies. They looked at me all the same.

_“Evacuate the civilians,”_ I ordered quickly, in Italian. _“About half a, uh…”_

Fuck was the word for klick? Fuck was the conversion rate?

_“Half a kilometer,”_ I said. _“Got it?”_

They nodded, and scattered.

_“Stay together!”_ I yelled at their backs.

The main staircase ended in a split, the East Wing to the right, and the West Wing to the left.

“Mina,” I asked, “you have any-”

The PA system in the hallway let out a small, rattled electric shriek, then settled into a staticky transmission.

“Agent Thorton,” Marburg announced magnanimously. “You made it – good, that makes things interesting. We have Madison. She’s being held in the west wing of the museum. My men have orders to execute her.”

He paused. The urge to shoot out the PA system was growing.

“That where your bombs are, too?” I challenged.

“No,” he said, “the bombs are with me – at the Crusades exhibit. You won’t have time to reach both. Either way…”

He paused again, the smile aggravatingly audible. “Someone dies.”

“Your right about that, Marburg. Why don’t you stay put, I’ll be right there.”

“Left or right, Thorton – your choice. Madison – or coming after me and the bombs. There’s not time for both.”

The whining static cut out, immediately followed by the whining static of my earpiece.

“Mike,” Mina said. “Madison – she’s in the wing to your left…but the Crusades exhibit is in the wing to the right.”

“I _know,”_ I said. “I get it.”

_If_ he was telling the truth. _If_ he had her.

I assumed he was trying to play me. Like everyone else had been, lately.

“Which was should I go?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Mike – you’ll have to make the call. But I don’t think Marburg is bluffing.”

I though he was.

Or maybe it’s just what I’d _wanted_ to believe.

 

* * *

 

The East Wing was full of old Italian art, renaissance, by the look of it. I didn’t have much time to check. I was too busy dodging bullets and in one case, a throwing knife with the VCI’s wing and stars laser-etched into the blade’s base.

Another one sliced through the air and embedded itself in an already tattered canvas. I put the last of my rifle rounds into its owner’s chest, and took the knife with me. The edge cut through the edge of a painted blue robe a figure playing a lute. The canvas made a small tearing noise as I tugged the knife free.

Mina hadn’t said a thing through the whole fight, and she didn’t now.

 

* * *

 

“I’m picking up some interference on the channel,” Mina reported, shouting to be heard over VCI machine pistol fire. “And judging from the frequencies…there’s some proximity mines near your location!”

“I’ll keep an eye out!” I shouted back, trying to watch both the blatantly obvious yellow blinking mine on the column above my head, and the VCI approaching behind it.  

I had two seconds after jumping up and grabbing it to fling it towards the VCI, and dive away.

 

* * *

 

The smoking autoturret finally detonated, sending the throwing knife implanted in its guiding camera whizzing halfway across the room. The hilt was scorched, and the blade still radiated heat when I retrieved it.

 

* * *

 

Security was dead. They’d clearly been left where they landed, falling down the marble stairs in the room. A few had made it to the centerpiece of the Crusades exhibit, a collection of massive brassy gold statues of elephants. There were bullet holes in the columns around the edges of the room. Indicators, maybe, of who they’d been fighting again.

The VCI were gone now. And when I approached the crates stashed in between the elephant statues, I could see why.

_2:59:14._

The counter was decreasing rapidly. Another second ticked off.

The mess of wires the counter was nestled into was connected to a hell of a lot of crates.

Half a klick my ass.

“Three minutes,” I reported.

“Get ready for evac!” someone else shouted.

Too late, I realized several balconies were overlooking the center exhibit. And that’s where the VCI has decided to camp.

I fell, tucking myself behind the nearest crate of high explosives.

It didn’t help. They’d seen me.

Several bullets pinged sparks of the side of an elephant statue.

“Mike?” Mina asked.

“Working on it.”

I fired blind. No screams, still too many bullets coming for me. They fired, and I fired back. The timer counted down. We were going to die here. I didn’t know a thing about bomb defusal, not this kind, not – and Madison – and they kept shooting.

My rifle jammed with a sharp, harsh click I could feel in my bones.

Calm down.

“Mina,” I said, “Give me thirty second intervals – and in about a minute, I’m going to need you to talk me through defusing this.”

“Two minutes, thirty seconds,” she said. “Get me a picture of the detonator.”

“Copy.”

Clear the rifle. Hope it wasn’t serious. Tap the magazine back into place, rerack and fire over my head. It’s working, someone screams, dive roll out of cover while you still have a chance. Take cover again, this time behind the crates with the detonator. Fire. Stop, take the picture. Send it. Back to firing.

“Receiving,” Mina said.

Sneak a glance up. Nearly lose your head for it. Quick, think. There were two in front of you, for sure. But they’d be looking…

Turn around. He’s staring at through pistol sights. Hope his range is worse than yours. Swing around, fire at the same time. Are you dead? No? Good. Is he? Good.

“Two minutes,” Mina said.

“Two minutes, boys!” I shouted up at the last two. They might leave. They didn’t. Dedication, great.

Less shooting at me, though.

“Run while you still can!” I advised. “Half a klick! Think you can do that in two minutes?”

The shooting stopped slowly.

“Marburg will never know!” I said. “Unless you really think I can defuse these in, what? A minute thirty?”

“One forty-five, actually,” Mina pointed out.

They took off.

What were they thinking of me, right then?

“One thirty,” Mina said. “Are you ready?”

The first detonator was blinking, counting down quickly.

“Ready,” I said.

“We’re lucky. Do exactly what I say, quickly. We should have time.”

“Got it.”

“These are…” she said, then paused. “No, the design number don’t matter, just – okay. There should be four black buttons on the side. There should also be at least two wires on the left– three? Is it two, or three?”

“Mina?”

“Sorry, hang on.”

“Uh,” I said. “There are about a dozen wires.”

Silence, except for the detonator beeping. 59…58

“Mina?”

“Hang on.”

“We don’t really-”

“Okay,” she said calmly. “Forget the wires. There’s an override code that should reset the time. And another one to…I don’t know. Glitch the system, or something.”

_“Should?”_

“We can debate later; just do it. Leftmost button twice, third four times, second once, first twice-”

The beeping was almost drowning out her voice. “Slow down, Mina.”

“I can’t. Keep up.”

I tried, I really did. I got to the last one and was half sure the museum was going up then and there. It didn’t. The detonator skipped from 28 to 0, I had a miniature heart attack, and then the detonator switched off.

“Okay…” I said slowly, “I think-”

“There should be a second one in the opposite corner,” Mina informed me.

The heart attack was slightly less miniature, this time.

Running through the statues took three seconds; finding the seconds detonator another two. 23, 22-

“Hurry,” she said, repeating her instructions all over again and this time, I didn’t bother asking her to take it easy. I finished with all of one second to spare. It felt like an eternity. An empty one. No thinking, just sitting back against the dead crates, sliding to the ground, breathing. Not believing it was over. Who would I have to fight, to stop them from coming back? And just turning the things back on again? Fuck. They’d know by now, know the bombs hadn’t gone off, they’d be on their way back. Maybe I could organize security, or something, maybe – Madison had called the cops, though. They could-

_Madison._ Marburg had her. Marburg had her, fuck, _fuck,_ where? Outside the museum, maybe? Anywhere in Rome. Anywhere in the _world._ I-

Footsteps. And her voice.

“Mike!” she shouted, talking fast, sounding stained. “Get out of here! Marburg is-”

Across the room and up the stairs, A VCI man in a suit caught up with Madison. He got her head in a lock and forced a hand over her mouth. Marburg strolled in behind them.

“It’s over!” I said. “Let her go!”

Madison _mmphfd_ through the VCI’s hand. She struggled with him, even when he tightened her hold. She did. She tried.

Marburg gazed down at me. He took in the dead security guards, and the dead screen on the detonators, and the rifle strapped on my back.

He smiled.

“Do as he says,” he ordered, with a dismissive wave.

The VCI man pushed Madison away. She stumbled. She looked back over her shoulder at the lot of them, the VCI guard, and Marburg, and another one walking in. The two guards stared ahead impassively. Marburg kept his eyes on me.

Madison was looking at me, too. She was. How was I supposed to look away?

I nodded gently. She took a step, wrapping her arms around herself. She was wearing the same salmon colored blazer she’d been wearing the first day we met. She looked cold anyway.

I took a step towards her, and one of the guards pointed his shotgun at me. Madison shook her head. She looked backwards at Marburg again, then started down the stairs. She tried to smile at me. She didn’t have it in her; I didn’t either.

I was looking at her. I didn’t see it happening until it was too late.

“Deus Vult,” Marburg said quietly, the black and silver pistol in his hand.

He didn’t recoil with the shot. Neither did Madison. It seemed like just a noise, like we’d all agreed to pretend we heard a gunshot at the same time. The pistol shot sound happened, and Madison stopped walking. Her eyes widened. She looked down at the growing bloodstain showing through her jacket. She looked back up at me, with confusion, and questions, and uncertainty, and then her eyes went unfocused.

Her knees buckled, and she fell onto the stairs. Her body went limp, and slid a few steps more.

It only took me seconds to reach her. It didn’t matter.

Marburg sighed. “You brought it on her,” he said.

She lay facedown on the marble. I couldn’t bring myself to turn her head. Couldn’t touch her, couldn’t comfort her – not that she need me too – did she? Need me? Still?

I didn’t know if she believed in an afterlife. It hit hard. I didn’t even know if she wanted to be buried, I didn’t know _anything_ about her-

Except that she wasn’t a spy. Couldn’t have been. Not with the way Marburg had- not with the way he- she couldn’t have been, couldn’t have been anything but afraid and calling the police to- and I- this was _my-_

No. _“You_ pulled the trigger,” I growled at the fucker on the stairs. I had my rifle. One of Marburg’s men put a warning shot past my side.

Marburg had his pistol in hand and a neutral smile on his face. “Don’t blame me,” he said. “You made your choice.”

“Don’t give me that third party _bullshit,_ Marburg. I’m-”

No. No, he wasn’t getting out of it that easy. No cops. No police. She’d wanted it but that, that was…over, or…should be? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I was going to kill that son of a bitch and I was going to do it now.

He looked at me with raised eyebrows and an air of impatience.

He deserved to know. Deserved to feel it coming. Deserved to _know._

“I’m gonna kill you,” I told him, smiled when he didn’t react, because it was going to be all the better when his new reality suddenly sunk in. “Quickly. Which is more than a coward who shoots women in the back deserves.”

“I may give you that chance, Thorton,” he said, clasping his hands together in front of him, gun disappearing into a holster. “If only to further your edu-”

His guard’s shotgun blast went wide. He hadn’t been expecting me to move backwards. An angry, impulsive rush up the stairs, maybe, and- and I almost did, it would have been so satisfying, but I had to live if I wanted to kill him. Backwards it was, dashing back and falling into cover behind a pillar, a wide view of the stairs and the body at the base- and-

Marburg’s men came hurrying down the stairs, laying down cover fire with shotguns. I shot blind. They survived it.

“I’m impressed,” Marburg shouted over the constant sound of shotguns, layered one after another, and return rifle fire, frantic, ill-timed, going to get me killed if I kept up like that.

“You stay focused,” he rambled, “carried out your mission, disarmed the bombs…”

I ducked back as a shotgun blast caught the edge of the pillar, and blew apart the outer layer of wood.

“…and left her for last. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Mike,” Mina warned, “he’s trying to provoke you.”

I didn’t care. I _wanted_ it. I curled a finger around the trigger-

“Mike,” she said stern, absolute, angry.

Swallow the feeling. Force it down. Try to breathe-

“Oh, the choices an agent in your line of work has to make everyday…” he mused. His shoe soles tapping as he went down the stairs. If he touched her, if he so much as went _near_ her…

“Did you think you had time? No, no, no. No, I was quite clear with you about that. You _knew,_ Thorton.”

Another cold _Thorton_ from Mina. A shotgun round from a VCI – Deus Vult – from a guard.

More of his footsteps.

“Maybe you thought you could be a hero, save her…”

He didn’t know a goddamn thing. I was going to tear the sick fucker apart.

“Agent Thorton…” Mina said.

His footsteps stopped. I glanced out in between shotgun shots. He was standing next to her body, pistol pointed at her head.

He glanced over at me and _tsked._ “It doesn’t work that way,” he said.

A round from a shotgun forced me back into cover. There was a single pistol shot, and I knew, I _knew-_

I came out shooting. He smiled. There was an awkward hole in the marble beside her body with the bullet casing right there, and he smiled.

_“Shit,_ Mike, _fuck-”_ Mina swore. “Get _out_ of there!”

It didn’t matter. If they hit me. So long as I got him. And I did. I had him. He was smiling and he didn’t expect it, underestimation, distraction? Who the fuck knows, I had a line on his forehead and a finger on the trigger and in the distance, faint sirens, Madison’s sirens.

I froze.

I was going to choke. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t even _see_ him. Except I knew I had the shot, I _knew_ I did, I had to have had it. And I didn’t do it. I sat there shaking because the rifle was so damn heavy in my hands.

He smiled even more.

“I’m going to enjoy killing you, Thorton,” he said, and ran.

_NO._

I went after him, the shotgun guards ducking out of cover. One went down, doubled over, the shock of taking a frisbeed assault rifle to the stomach, the other surprised enough for a second that I had a chance to tackle him, pull his shotgun free, bash his nose in with it and send him running in the opposite direction at gunpoint. The other one shot at me with my own damn rifle, the shots going too far to the left. I yanked it out of his hands.

“It does that,” I said.

I added several shots at his feet, and he ran too.

There were heavy metal security doors closing at the top of the exhibit. Marburg was already through them. I slid through at the last second, nearly having to roll.

The autoturret wasn’t smoking anymore. The room almost looked peaceful. Columns and art and pots on stands. It should have been full of tourists this time of day.

Noise from the back of the room, near the main exit to the exhibit.

“I expected more from a self-appointed _hero,”_ Marburg said, voice echoing, sneer audible. “You are disposable and obsolete.”

I crouched beside the nearest cover, a large column with a painting on the other side.

“Says the corporate tool who answers to Leland,” I told him, concentrating, listening. Triangulating.

“I work for Halbech. You…”

He laughed. I could almost _see_ where he was standing, almost…

“You’re a man without a country, Thorton. You’re _me,_ twenty years ago.”

“What’s that in dog years?”

“Even if you escape, I know how your story ends.”

_Got him._

“Keep talking,” I said. “Lets me know where to shoot.”

“Enough of this,” he spat, with sudden venom.

_Let this work. Please._

I picked the right column, decorating it with rifle rounds, but he went running and I couldn’t do it. I fucking- I _had_ him, I swear I did but I was dizzy. He ran off with only one token shot back at me, ran off and through the next security door, and I couldn’t and I was cursing myself because I was halfway across the room and I was never going to get there, and I was never- I tried, though, I-

“Mike!” Mina said, cutting through a steam of angry curses.

“Dammit, he’s getting away!”

“There’s nothing you can do now, Mike,” she said placatingly, gently, giving up. “Get out of there.”

She was right, and if I could stop feeling sick for a second I could move- I could-

“There’ll be another time,” she promised.

Right. And _that_ was a fucking promise I could hold on to. This wasn’t it. I was going to kill that son of a bitch, I was, I swore it. I promised.

The sirens were louder now. The tunnels were still intact. An escape route.

I glanced back at the closed security gate leading to the Crusades exhibit. I couldn’t even go back to-

_Don’t think about it,_ I thought.

Don’t think about it.

Just…don’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> d194-199


	37. Ara Pacis Augustae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rome is over

_Security footage from the Crusades exhibits. The VCI setting up the bombs. It’d been…what? Weeks ago? It looked foreign. Some place I’d never been, and had never wanted to go. Don’t look at them._

_Leland stood facing the screens, smoking, rambling, the-_

_The anger made it hard to see straight. He’d condemned her to death. He didn’t even care._

_“So you chose Rome,” he said. “I underestimated you.”_

_As if leaving her to die was a compliment._

_“Marburg did not- he said you were a pragmatist, that you would carry out your mission.”_

_“You’re going to answer for killing her,” I told him, the first thing I’d said since he started recounting the museum._

_He looked amused by it._

_“I hope you don’t blame me for her death,” he said, sitting back down, dragging smoke with him. “Marburg wanted you to save her – not out of any emotional tie, mind you. For him, it was business.”_

_The news reports, on screen. I couldn’t look. It didn’t matter. All of it, noise. Saint James, Saint James, Saint James the martyr. Whole country talking about her. Whole_ world _talking about her._

_I’d though it would at least get them to shut up about the embassy._

_Yeah-fucking-right._

_“A shame,” he said. “But you can’t save everyone, Michael, can you? If I had been in your shoes…”_

_He turned to me and shrugged broadly. “Well, I don’t know_ what _I would have done.”_

_I had it in me to hate him. But I made the mistake of glancing back at the television screens, and it took everything I had. Crime scene photos. Numbered flags next to blood and bullet casings._

_He was smiling, waiting patiently for me to take the bait, to fight him, to give him something, some part of me breaking through the cracks._

_I just wanted it to be over._

_I just…just wanted it to be done._

_“You wouldn’t have done anything,” I told him, a blank, tired assessment. “That’s why you sent Marburg in the first place.”_

_“Executive row has its privileges,” he conceded._

_“You don’t make any real choices, Leland, not really- whatever you hope to gain from the bombing, it’s over now.”_

_“Really?” he said, humoring me, or he thought he was, clearly. “That’s because you have a…very – narrow – view of events.”_

_“Then tell me what the bigger picture is,” I said, not expecting him to do it._

_He paused, looked away, considering._

_“I can’t expect you to keep up with every news report – I have an entire division devoted to it…plus my ace in the hole. The bombing was intended to…reorganize terrorist legislation in the European Union.”_

_“So what? How does that benefit you?”_

_“The reorganization was to benefit_ Halbech,” _he chastised. “Surveillance, airport screening tech, weapons…Mr. Marburg’s little crusade in Rome was to remind Europe what fear is.”_

_“So you killed Madison for profit-”_

_“No, Mike,” he said almost immediately, forceful and sudden and pushing himself away from the table._ “You _did._ You _brought her into this mess._ You _had her take you to Marburg, despite the risks, and then, you failed to protect her.”_

_The accusation had sent him pacing, gesturing furiously. It was an empty victory. He was right._

_“Blame me all you want,” he said, returning to lean aggressively over the table. “But step back and think about.”_

_It was the first thing he’d said that was true, and I couldn’t say anything about it._

_And he knew it. He watched me avoid his eyes and he knew I knew it, too._

_There is was. The bits showing through the cracks. The things I was never supposed to let him get a hold of. ~~~~_

_“…you must have thought about it,” he pressed. He’d seen it._

_“When it was all over, you were the big hero, saved all of Rome…” he said. “When things were quiet, no one shooting at you, no bombs…what did you think about then?”_

\------------------------

Alpha Protocol Safehouse

Rome

\------------------------

They knew where it was and they had access. I hadn’t meant to go back but at some point that’s where I’d ended up.

At some point, too, night had come and passed. I didn’t recall falling asleep, just one long string of disconnected thoughts.

At some point, I’d realized I needed to pack. They’d come. Someone. VCI, Halbech. The cops.

At some point I realized I didn’t care if they did.

Mina called. Said things along the lines of _leave._ I couldn’t. She asked why. And I didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to hear her, didn’t want to hear _anything._ I wanted everything to be still for a second. I pulled the battery from my PDA and put the pieces…somewhere. Somewhere. I didn’t know.

At some point I thought thinking about it might help, so I did, and I couldn’t breathe for crying for a half-hour, and when I finally did get control back, I realized I’d been smarter the first time. Don’t think about it. Just don’t.

At some point, night came again. I’m sure I slept. I must have. I woke up on the couch with snatches of nightmares running through my head. _Operator? Hello? Or people you care about will start to die. Mike! Marburg is-_

_Deus…Vult._

_Or people you care about will start to-_

Don’t think about how this was my fault.

Don’t think about it.

_Don’t._

In the end, it wasn’t the VCI, or Halbech, or even the cops.

It was a goddamn mailwoman.

She banged on the door impatiently.

_“I need you to sign this, sir!”_ she shouted through the door.

She went away, eventually, but she came back the next day, doing the same goddamn thing, and the thing of it was…it was so _surreal._ So bizarre, so…normal.

I opened the door laughing, perfectly prepared to be shot by some assassin right then and there.

She glared at me, lips curled together in an angry frown, and shoved a clipboard at my chest. She also had a letter.

I signed. I knew. Getting to be a standard _modus operandi_ with her.

Yep, sure enough, her handwriting.

_Next time,_ Mina had written, angry, messy cursive, _you consider going incommunicado, think about the paper trail you’re forcing me to leave._

_First, you need to get moving NOW. Darcy’s gone off-grid, we think he’s heading from Rome._

_Second, Leland ordered Madison’s death. I found proof._

_Turn your damn phone back on._

 

* * *

 

 

Signed orders. Targeting her, specifically. Ordering Marburg to hire her, ordering him to-

Saint James would have called them _termination contracts._

She was a backup plan. An extra bit of control over Parker, if they’d needed it.

Mina was giving me space, but she was nervous. She kept looking to the bottom of her screen, where her clock was, no doubt.

She was right. I needed to leave, and soon.

“Where’d you find it?” I asked her. Reading.

“Surkov’s files,” she explained.

“You cracked them?” Reading. Rereading.

“Most of them.”

“Good.” Reading. Rereading. Memorizing.

“Mike?”

“Hm?”

I glanced back over at her image on the television.

“You really should get going.”

“Worried?” I asked. I felt good. No…I felt…felt like I was going to dismantle Halbech and the VCI and Marburg and Leland, in that order.

I could believe that. I could remind myself of it every time I needed a reason to…to move.

“About you?” she asked. “Always.”

“Can’t tell if you’re joking or not, but…thanks. Shall we?”

“Please.”

I left everything behind but my weapons and my laptop. Didn’t need the reminders anymore, plus…it was better if I didn’t have to go back in her bedroom. Her notes on Marburg, Keats. A small plastic Colosseum paperweight.

Let Alpha Protocol think of that what they would.

Let them know how close I was to taking them down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaand thats it for rome! taking nov. off for nanowrimo, so, see yall in december, probs! pace people, rigil out


End file.
